Each issue of the Rosicrucian Digest provides members and all interested readers with a compendium of materials regarding the ongoing flow of the Rosicrucian Timeline. The articles, historical excerpts, art, and literature included in this Digest span the ages, and are not only interesting in themselves, but also seek to provide a lasting reference shelf to stimulate continuing study of all of those factors which make up Rosicrucian history and thought. Therefore, we present classical background, historical development, and modern reflections on each of our subjects, using the many forms of primary sources, reflective commentaries, the arts, creative fiction, and poetry.

This magazine is dedicated• to all the women and men throughout the ages who have contributed to and perpetuated the wisdom of the Rosicrucian, Western esoteric, Tradition.

May we ever be •worthy of the light with which we have been entrusted.

In this issue, we contemplate• the Good, the Beauty, and the Love of Neoplatonism, a tradition that has profoundly influenced Western esotericism and all of Western culture.

Rosicrucian Digest No. 1 2012 Page ii No. 1 - 2012 Vol. 90 - No. 1 Peter Kingsley, Ph.D. “Paths of the Ancient Sages: A Pythagorean History” Neoplatonism: An Introduction 2 Giulia Minicuci and Mary Jones, S.R.C. “Pythagoras the Teacher: From Samos to Metapontum” Mysticism in the Evolution of Cultures 4 Official Magazine of the Peter Bindon, FRC Worldwide Emanation and Return to the One 11 Rosicrucian Order Lloyd Abrams, Ph.D., FRC The Strange Enigma of Plotinus 17 Established in 1915 by the Supreme Charles Getts RuthGrand Phelps, Lodge S.R.C. of the English“The SchoolLanguage of Pythagoras” Jurisdiction, AMORC, Rosicrucian The Great Library of Alexandria 21 Anonymous Park, San Jose, “The CA Golden95191. Verses of Pythagoras” Bill Anderson, FRC AntoineCopyright Fabre 2012 d’Olivet, by the Supreme “GrandExcerpt from Examination of the Golden Verses” HughLodge McCague, of AMORC, Ph.D., Inc. F.R.C. All rights “Pythagoreans Hypatia and of AlexandriaSculptors: The Canon of Polykleitos2 8 reserved. Republication of any portion Valerie Dupont, SRC Melanieof Rosicrucian Richards, Digest M.Mus., is prohibited S.R.C. “Pythagoras and Music” without prior written permission of the Lisa publisher.Spencer, M.A.O.M., S.R.C. “TheAvicenna Neo-Pythagoreans at the Porta Maggiore3 2 in Connie James, SRC Rome” ROSICRUCIAN DIGEST (ISSN #0035–8339) is published bi-annually Jeanfor Guesdon, $12.00 per S.R.Cyear, single copies $6.00,“Silence” Marsilio Ficino and Renaissance Neoplatonism 36 by the Grand Lodge of the English Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, D. Phil. Frater Language X, Jurisdiction,“Music AMORC, of the Spheres and Pythagorean Numerology” Inc., at 1342 Naglee Ave., San Jose, Platonic Love 43 Ben CAFinger, 95191. POSTMASTER:“Apollonius: Send Man or Myth?” Ralphaddress M. Lewis,changes F.R.C.to ROSICRUCIAN “Reviewing Elisa our Acts”Cuttjohn, SRC DIGEST at 1342 Naglee Ave., San StaffJose, of theCA 95191–0001.Rosicrucian Research LibraryThe School“A Pythagorean of Athens Bookshelf” 48 Raphael Νεοπλατωνισμός Nature: A Neoplatonic Text 50 Ralph Waldo Emerson Beauty in Art or the Art of Beauty 54 Christian Bernard, FRC Rosicrucian Ontology 56

Page 1 Neoplatonism: An Introduction

f you live in the Western world today Neoplatonists synthesized the approaches or have been influenced by it, you of Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and others, I may be more of a Neoplatonist than addressing the individual yearning for you realize. As the mathematician and salvation from a philosophical viewpoint. philosopher Alfred North Whitehead stated, Neoplatonism posits a single source (the the general characterization of the Western One) from which all existence emanates philosophical tradition “consists of a series of and with which an individual soul can be footnotes to Plato.”1 mystically united. This philosophical school Neoplatonism is a relatively modern provided ways that the individual could term that mid-nineteenth century scholars ascend the ladder of being through theoria – created to distinguish the ideas of later contemplation of the Divine. Greek and Roman Platonists from those of Many widely accepted Neoplatonic Plato himself. Plotinus (ca. 204 – 270 CE) concepts have been perpetuated in the West is considered the first main proponent of by such diverse sources as Christianity, Neoplatonism. His intent was to use Plato’s Sufism, Kabbalah, the art and philosophy of thought as an intellectual basis for a rational the Renaissance, the Cambridge Platonists, and humane life.2 the American Transcendentalists, and others.

Rosicrucian Digest No. 1 Plato (428 BCE – 348 BCE). 2012 Page 2 Neoplatonic approaches continue to be of • Contemplating the harmony tremendous importance in Jewish, Christian, and transcendental nature of the and Islamic mysticism, as well as the Beautiful and the Good elevates us esoteric schools, including Rosicrucianism. in consciousness. Neoplatonism exerted a great influence • After completing its spiritual on the Western esoteric tradition through evolution, the soul of each human the work of Marsilio Ficino, a devout being reintegrates with the Universal Neoplatonist, translator, and humanist Soul in all purity and lives in philosopher of the fifteenth century. the Divine Immanence in full The following Rosicrucian tenets consciousness. resonate with Neoplatonism: Remarkable individuals such as Plotinus, • All of Creation is permeated by a Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus, Augustine Universal Soul. of Hippo (Saint Augustine), Hypatia, • The ultimate goal of life is to achieve Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Avicenna, mystical union with the Divine (the Paracelsus, Marsilio Ficino, Pico della One). Mirandola, Raphael, Henry More, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Taylor, and Ralph • Knowing oneself is essential to Waldo Emerson have all been associated with achieving this goal. Neoplatonism or Neoplatonic thought. • This can be accomplished without This issue of the Rosicrucian Digest an intermediary person. introduces us to some of their lives and • Mystical contemplation is a means to ideas, and the Neoplatonic tradition over the achieve union with the Divine. millennia.

As for the Rosicrucian conception of spirituality, it is based, on the one hand, upon the conviction that the Divine exists as an Absolute Intelligence having created the universe and everything therein; and, on the other hand, on the assurance that each human being possesses a soul which emanates from the Divine.

—From the Rosicrucian Positio Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis (2001)

ENDNOTES 1 Alfred North Whitehead. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, (New York: Free Press, 1979), 39. 2 PBS, “Neoplatonism,” http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/neoplat-body.html.

Page 3 Mysticism in the Evolution of Cultures Peter Bindon, FRC

eter Bindon, FRC, is a During the rise of materialism, many professional anthropologist of the world’s cultures deeply repressed P and botanist. He recently or even denied the organic processes that retired as Grand Master of the English link humans with nature; these processes Grand Lodge for Australia, Asia, and are birth, reproduction, and death. New Zealand after many years of Simultaneously, the spiritual awareness that service in this position. In this article, once provided humanity with a sense of Frater Bindon takes us on a journey meaningful belonging to the cosmos was through Mysticism in the Evolution of replaced by disbelief in a Cosmic force, or Cultures and shares some of the many superficial religious activities of decreasing correspondences of Rosicrucianism and vitality and relevance. Happily, Rosicrucians Neoplatonic concepts. have maintained their interest in a positive relationship with the Cosmic and are striving to be practical and constructive in offering something to the world that will assist each One of the costs today’s humans have and every human to advance this spiritual had to bear as a result of the all-too-fast quest. But, you ask, by what mechanism can technological development which followed humanity achieve this goal of advancement? on from the scientific and industrial The mechanism that advances revolutions is the inexorable loss of our civilization towards spirituality is mysticism, links with the earth and more importantly of which we Rosicrucians are probably all alienation from our spiritual source. practitioners. And there are suggestions To most of us, and perhaps in every age, that outside the Order an unprecedented progress is looked upon as synonymous with renaissance of interest in the psychology the improvement of material conditions. of mysticism and the spiritual inter- A civilization which can produce laser eye relationships that exist between all beings in surgery, space travelers, super railways, and the universe are developing among more and atomic fusion is generally regarded as being more individuals. advanced. But the enlightened few of every period in history have always recognized So, what is mysticism and what are its that true civilization is something more than origins? The non-theological use of the word material development, and that “something” “mystical” in English, meaning “a hidden is spiritualization. They have recognized that or secret thing” dates from about 1300 CE material advancements are only instruments and arrives in English from Anglo-French for providing the leisure and opportunity for where it is misterie (O.Fr. mistere). It came the development of the spirit. The nearer the into French from the Latin mysterium, but Rosicrucian human race approaches to the Central Spirit its origin was from the Greek mysterion Digest of the universe, to the Cosmic, the further it meaning “secret rite or doctrine,” but of No. 1 2012 will have progressed. course, mysticism is itself much older than Page 4 this label for it. It is clear that mysticism and in the second instance it is because most implies a relationship to mystery. religions contain the language that is most Many philosophers refer to mysticism as called upon when talking of the ultimate being either a religious tendency and desire entity or the infinite. In fact, as we have of the human soul towards an intimate seen, it is well-nigh impossible to examine union with the Divinity, or as a system mysticism in popular writings without growing out of such a tendency and desire. also encountering religion, so intertwined These contentions assume that the so-called have the two become since the advent of Divinity, about which they speak, is the organized religion in the world. So Western absolute and ultimate state of existence. This mystics rarely claim that their experience may or may not be so, but, are mysticism dissolved them into the being of ultimate and religion inextricably related? I think reality because Western theism insists that not. Mystical contemplation and spiritual human beings never literally become God, expression can take place both inside and or the divine. On the other hand Eastern outside the realm of religious belief and mystics often describe the ultimate state religious dogma. of their spiritual experience as involving complete physical and sensory union with Usually a mystical experience is filled what we might call “Cosmic Consciousness.” with intense feelings and may involve a dialogue with or a direct encounter with All mystical experiences, therefore, ultimate reality; what we call the “Cosmic.” vary somewhat. Each is unique, but the The “mystery” here is uniqueness does not defining the identity of A successful mystical diminish or negate the the something or someone claim for transcendence or greater than human experience may touching ultimate reality comprehension that has depend less on the despite the comment that been encountered during particulars of the the mystical experience the mystical exercise. In itself is in part a function the West, it is only in the given occurrence than of what the mystic thinks last 2,000 years or so that on what happens can happen. Many mystics mystical experience has because of it. say that speech breaks come to mean a direct down and is inadequate experience of the divine; to describe their state, that and since, in theory at least, Christianity is silence is more appropriate, and that even the religion of love, the Christian “mystical” silence is not adequate. This dimension of experience is spoken of as a “spiritual the mystical experience, although ultimately marriage.” For myself, I believe that a inseparable from the culture and personality successful mystical experience may depend of each mystic, transcends or rises above less on the particulars of the given occurrence cultures, and applies to Christians as much than on what happens because of it. as to Aboriginal people. And here lies a Mystical experiences are shaped by difficulty. culture and tradition. Accounts of their What prehistoric humans thought can experiences provided by mystics are never be known with certainty, because they inevitably influenced by the culture in did not write it down. The materials that which they live and by their professed they left behind them, like tools, weapons, religious tradition. In the first case it is works of art, burials, and the rest, can be because language and linguistic references interpreted in many ways, but even then we and expressions are determined by culture may not arrive at the actual interpretation.

Page 5 At best, material objects comprise a that these early humans conceived of the fragmentary record of the many different supernatural “something” as a super-human human groups who have lived in a variety of that was in control of the order of nature. physical environments over a period of time Evidence of some sort of religio-magical far longer than that of recorded history. And cult, dating from about 100,000 BCE, has even after written records begin to appear, been found in caves in the European Alps because describing spiritual ecstasy is so where the skulls of bears had been placed on difficult we have few documents that can tell stone slabs in what looks like a ceremonious us what previous cultures and civilizations arrangement. Firstly, this action suggests thought about this activity. that these relics were set apart from the However, some deductions about mundane and were considered special in what our ancestors thought about life and some way; and secondly, it indicates that death, the two major concerns they had as the cave itself may have been thought to be we ourselves have, can perhaps be drawn a sacred place. Does the selection of skulls from the burial practices and tools of a sub- for this arrangement demonstrate that they group of humans known as Neanderthals. thought a creature’s head contained the These folk buried their dead with care, essence of its being? Certainly the intention indicating their affection for the deceased. of the rituals of later bear-hunting peoples They included food and equipment in the was to appease some supernatural power for graves which suggests they had a belief in an the killing of a bear, to make sure that there afterworld of some kind, in which the dead would be no decline in the supply of bears were not entirely cut off from the living. for hunting. Thus, we discover that the idea It also implies that they understood one that an animating essence or spirit inhabits factor which distinguishes humans from all aspects of Nature. The idea that every hill other animals; the knowledge of their own or stream or tree or living thing has a soul is inevitable death. This remains the basis of one of the oldest of human beliefs. one of the great mysteries of life. And thus, People with limited control over their like we do, they understood that time passes environment are likely to have tried to and results in death and then ... ? establish some kind of relationship with In turn, a sense of time implies the their own ancestors, from whom they have concept of order, of events following one inherited such knowledge of the workings another in succession, suggesting that of nature as they possess. Their reason for Neanderthalers understood the pattern of this contact with their ancestors would most birth, life, and death that underlies human likely be to try to gain some control over existence— that we are born, live for a time, the powers that give order to Nature. They and then die. They must have observed needed to ensure that food supplies were that the same cycle is true of plants and of maintained, that their animals were fruitful, animals. Perhaps it was this understanding and that children were born. No doubt, they that brought these early humans to the also needed to act in some way to appease conclusion that behind the order of nature Nature which sometimes disastrously fails to lay something beyond and above the plants, provide the necessities. the animals, and even above themselves. In the Upper Paleolithic period (between After all, the task of the shaman, the about 30,000 to 10,000 BCE), after the person who was perhaps more perceptive arrival on the scene of Homo sapiens sapiens, or spiritually inclined than others in their as we like to call ourselves, burials become Rosicrucian group, was to attempt to make contact with more elaborate and ceremonious, and there Digest No. 1 that supernatural something that lay beyond is strong evidence of the people’s concern 2012 human knowledge. We might imagine for fertility in the “Venus figures,” small Page 6 Perhaps this also implies that these people had ideas of magical symbolism in which a real state of affairs can be influenced in some way through mimicry and simulated situations. Neanderthalers did not wear ornaments, so far as is known, but the later Palaeolithic peoples did. They made necklaces of animals’ teeth or cowrie shells, for instance, and carved bracelets from mammoths’ tusks. It seems likely that ornaments contained an ingredient of magic, as they have tended to do ever since. The teeth may have carried with them the qualities of the animals from which they came, and in many times and Venus figure. many cultures the cowrie shell has been an figurines of women, some highly stylized emblem of the feminine and fertility. and others comparatively realistic, found in The so-called “Neolithic revolution,” a number of archaeological contexts across which saw the gradual development of Europe. The swollen pregnant abdomens cultivating crops and breeding animals, of many of these figures and their blank, instead of gathering and hunting, originated featureless heads suggest that they were not in Asia in the ninth millennium BCE or meant to portray particular women but a earlier, and spread over most of Europe more abstract idea of “woman” in general, by about 3500 BCE. Our picture now and especially woman in her role of mother. becomes, if anything, even more obscure They may have been worn by women as than before and the course of the transition amulets to ensure fruitfulness and they may from what is known of the Palaeolithic to have represented a Great Mother, the source the religions of societies with written records of all life. is not at all clear. The Upper Palaeolithic is also the time It seems evident that as agriculture, when the magnificent cave art of Europe was horticulture, and animal husbandry are produced. If the purpose of this art included gradually established during the Neolithic a desire to promote fertility amongst the period, the annual cycle of Nature becomes animal species portrayed as well as to assist a dominating factor in human life and a hunting, then we might conclude that the focus of religious and magical attention. society in which the artists lived, believed in Unlike the aggressive hunter, the passive a supernatural order of reality that humans farmer relies more on the slow workings of must try to influence in order that they and forces which are still largely beyond human their quarry are to eat, live, and procreate. control. Hunting’s perspectives are relatively

Page 7 short-term and farming’s are relatively than previously, especially those individuals long. The sense of an order behind Nature, who had been powerful in life. Sometimes, of human dependence on it, and of the as in megalithic burials in Europe, perils of disorder in the shape of drought, or pyramid burials in ancient Egypt, famine, destructive storms, pestilence, constructing the graves involved immense may have been strengthened by the longer and extravagant toil implying a deep respect perspective of farming communities. There for the powers of the dead personage and are scattered pieces of evidence confirming probably the belief that they influenced the that agricultural people worshipped fertility growth of crops from the earth in which they deities. Seedtime and harvest were the two lay buried. Representations of the mother great occasions of the year, and likely to be goddess are often found in burying places celebrated with festivals and rites intended and she seems clearly connected with the to ensure a good crop. And it appears that earth. undertaking ceremonies and performing Thus humanity arrived at a point where rituals that would ensure fruitfulness were they realized that we are and always remain among the basic concerns of prehistoric part of a universe. It is a living universe and humans, and probably represent humanity’s is animated with what I will call Spirit, and earliest religious ceremonies. that Spirit lies at the core of existence in The sky also becomes important, this universe. It is a dynamic force which because sun, rain, and wind affect the permeates the universe from its center to its growth of crops and because the calendar, circumference. Each of us has it in ourselves which successful agriculture demands, and by it we are being continually acted is worked out by the reference to events upon. It burns within us, and we are bathed occurring in the sky. (Reverence for the sky by its energy. But there are times when this and its forces may easily have existed long force is peculiarly insistent and urgent within before, though there is no evidence of sky us. And there are times when it presses worship in the Paleolithic.) But as we will upon us with urgency from without. And see, the new emphasis on the sky will bring there are rare occasions when the urge from Rosicrucian significant changes to the world. within and the pressure from without meet Digest Most Neolithic societies buried their and correspond. Then we have the ecstasy No. 1 2012 dead with greater pomp and circumstance of mystical experience in its fullness as an Page 8 interaction or connection is established regarding the attitude of peasants and between the individual self and the universal laborers in ancient Egypt towards mysticism, whole and during which the self enters the fact that they collected many prayers and into a new state of being. The most we can invocations to be recited over the deceased guess about what mystical practitioners in his or her coffin or even by the entombed were enacting or thinking at this point deceased demonstrates that some of the in prehistory is deduced from enigmatic presumed results of mystical activity were paintings made by the artists of the time in certainly within their understanding. caves and in secluded caverns. There is little Mysticism in the earliest As people began to master new schools of Greek philosophy, but it becomes techniques in their material lives, inventions important by the time of the philosophical and discoveries were fitted into a religio- system of Plato. It is especially evident in his magical context, but the people who made theory of the world of ideas, of the origin of these discoveries recorded precious little the world soul and the human soul, and in about their spiritual lives. The discovery his doctrine of recollection and intuition. of yeast, for example, made it possible to The Alexandrian Jew named Philo, who bake bread and brew beer, commodities lived between 30 BCE and 50 BCE, which both had a long history of symbolic taught that people, by freeing themselves connections with the deities and the from matter and receiving illumination otherworld. The rise of metallurgy with from the divine, may reach a mystical, the development of working in copper, ecstatic, or prophetical state in which they bronze, and iron gave the smith the become absorbed into Divinity. But the uncanny powers of one who was as much most systematic attempt at formulating a magician as craftsman. The seasonal philosophical system of a mystical character progression of the agricultural cycles was was that by the Neoplatonic School of still disrupted by climatic variability, which Alexandria, especially that of Plotinus, less sophisticated people put down to arguably the greatest philosopher-mystic the supernatural interference. Although we have world has ever known, who lived between some evidence of ceremonies and rituals 205 and 270 CE. whose aim was to appease wrathful deities, In his Enneads, Plotinus sets out a we know nothing of the spiritual quests of system which has as its central idea the individuals during these chaotic ages. concept that there exists a process of ceaseless The advance of towns, states, and armies emanation and out-flowing from the One, in central Europe, with their male dynasties the Absolute. He illustrates this concept and priesthoods, tended to diminish the using metaphors such as the radiation of earthly Great Mother’s status in favor of heat from fire, of cold from snow, fragrance male gods of the sky who came to dominate from a flower, or light from the Sun. This the civilizations of the ancient world. theme leads him to the maxim that “good Egyptian, Greek, and Roman stories told diffuses itself” (bonum diffusivum sui). He of the exploits of the sky-dwelling gods as concludes that entities that have achieved they created the universe, made humanity, perfection of their own being do not keep established order, and put down disorder. that perfection to themselves, but spread In far Western Europe the invasions and it out by generating an external image of conquests of warrior peoples, whose deities their internal activity. The ultimate goal of were gods of the sky, also lessened the human life and of philosophy is to realize influence of the Great Mother. the mystical return of the soul to the Divine. Although we have little information Freeing itself from the sensuous world by

Page 9 purification, the human soul ascends by the world religion, but despite perhaps successive steps through the various degrees being the carrier of mystical principle and of the metaphysical order, until it unites itself methods, mysticism is not religion, nor as in communion with the One. Now, I am I have already mentioned is it necessarily sure that you recognize some of our present- religious. Mysticism belongs to the core day Rosicrucian principles in there. of most religions and many commenced after their founder experienced a powerful and immediate mediate contact with the spiritual essence, their godhead. However, a lesser number of religions were prepared to allow their adherents to establish this kind of contact with the Cosmic for themselves, but rather kept this task firmly in the hands of a priesthood or the appointed leaders. The Cosmic is also commonly called the One, and you and I are in some sense that One. This means that the inmost self of humans is identical with the Absolute, with the unchanging power against which the whole changing universe must be seen. Thus, one lives not only with one’s own life but also with the life of the whole universe. This universal life is founded in a changeless Great Chain of Being by Robert Fludd (1617). Being which is at the same time one’s own It was Plotinus who gave us the image of eternity. It was this understanding which the Great Chain, used in later times by our made it possible for the poet Tennyson to own Rosicrucian alchemists and theorists say that death was “an almost laughable to draw symbolic spherical diagrams of up impossibility.” to twelve concentric spheres representing: These latter are some of the ideas that matter, life, sensation, perception, we have inherited from those cultures that impulse, images, concepts, logical have proceeded through history before us. faculties, creative reason, world soul, We carry their heritage. Some of their ideas nous, and the One. and concepts have been discarded as humans The development of a particularly came to new understandings of how the masculine outlook in cultures occurred many parts of this complex Universe fit over long stretches of time and the details together. Some ideas and concepts remain of its advance across the settled world are relatively unchanged. As Rosicrucians we largely unknown, but there was inexorable recognize that the final goal of all mystical continuity in its spread. Admittedly, experience is connection with that divine the Earth Mother of prehistory, in her infinity which lies beyond matter and various local incarnations, did become the mind, but which can transform them. The ancestress of goddesses of later societies, but approach to this ultimate state is through it seems that her times were past. It is worth the power of discriminating thought and observing that although her world had been purified emotions and, as Henry More, one uncertain, the new era of the masculine sky Rosicrucian of the Cambridge Platonists, stressed: “God Digest gods was no more settled. reserves His choicest secrets for the purest No. 1 Essentially mysticism brought to minds.” 2012 Page 10 Emanation and Return to the One Lloyd Abrams, Ph.D., FRC

n this article, RCUI Instructor Lloyd Spirit or spiritual energy are used to express Abrams, Ph.D., FRC, explains the this sense of flowing. The word “spirit” is INeoplatonist doctrine of “Emanation related to wind or breath, both of which are and Return” and presents some of its many flowing air. The Neoplatonists sometimes applications throughout the history of Western used more abstract terms, such as “causation” Esotericism. or “influence” flowing downward from one level to the next. Whatever terminology we encounter in the various esoteric systems, The Neoplatonist doctrine of we should remember that these are all “Emanation and Return” is a central metaphors for a metaphysical concept rather organizing theme of the Western Esoteric than descriptions of a physical process. Tradition. In Neoplatonism, the source Plotinus’s model includes three of everything, the highest divinity and “hypostases,” or fundamental levels of reality. ultimate reality, is “the One,” a formless, The first and highest is the unknowable infinite, simple unity. As such, it is beyond “One,” which emanates the next level, comprehension by the physical senses and called Nous, translated as Divine Mind or rational thought. For Neoplatonists, “all Intelligence. This second level contains the theoretical discussions of the One are finally Platonic Forms or Ideas, which we can know inadequate, since its true nature is revealed intellectually, and so this level is also called only in the mystical union.”1 Plotinus the Intelligible World. Nous then emanates likened the One to a fountain that overflows, the next lower level, Psychē or Soul, which and it is this out-flowing or emanation from animates the physical world and serves as the One that gives rise to all of the other an intermediary between the Intelligible levels of existence. In this model, creation World and the material world we know with is a sequential, stepwise process, from higher our physical senses. Later Neoplatonists and more perfect levels down to lower and added more and more intermediaries and lower levels, finally ending with the material multiple levels of being to Plotinus’s original world of multiplicity and oppositions. model, but the basic idea remained the What exactly is it that emanates or same. Everything comes from an original flows out of the One? Since the One is a ineffable unity by a process of sequential simple unity, without component parts or emanation, resulting in a graded hierarchy separate attributes, it must be the stuff of of levels or states of being, from the highest the One itself, infinite and unknowable. As divinity down to the lowest materiality. This we have seen, Plotinus compared it to water hierarchical structure has been called “The overflowing from a fountain. Light is often Great Chain of Being.” used as a metaphor for this divine flow, as There are two seemingly conflicting light is non-material and expands infinitely implications inherent in this model. First, in all directions. Sometimes terms like the sequential emanation of successively Page 11 lower and lower levels of being emphasizes and the pleasures of the physical senses, how we and our physical world are so it can be freed to rise back up through the separated from the divine level and so far seven planetary spheres, being progressively from connection with the One. Emanation purified by giving back at each level what proceeds farther and farther from the it had taken on during its descent, until it original source, and each level differs more regains its original purity and finally returns and more from the original unity and to re-unite with the One. perfection of the One. At the same time, Mysticism is attempting to make that however, since everything arises by a process return trip to divine union while one is still of emanation from the One, everything is alive, rather than waiting until after death. ultimately composed of the same basic stuff For the Neoplatonists, the model remains as the One. Therefore, in its deepest essence, the same. Mystics purify themselves by not even the lowliest particle of inert matter being too attached to the physical world shares a common nature with the One. So and the pleasures of the senses, and by there is a profound connection, or unity, living in accord with the divine will. Then, underlying the apparent multiplicity of the by engaging in various means, such as physical world, and of the entire hierarchy meditation, prayer, and ritual practices, the of worlds. That is why it is possible for us mystic sends his or her soul or consciousness to strive to return to our source, the One. up through the spheres toward re-union with The Neoplatonists asserted that all things the One. naturally desire to return to their source, The Neoplatonist doctrine of to re-unite with their cause. As the One is “Procession and Return” underlies many the first cause of everything, all things have aspects of the Western Esoteric Tradition. an inherent tendency to return to the One. This archetypal theme of a Fall from a perfect This Neoplatonist picture of emanation state of unity and divinity into the material followed by striving for reintegration is world of multiplicity and oppositions, and referred to as the doctrine of “Procession and striving to eventually re-unite with the Return.” original divine oneness, is prevalent in many spiritual traditions and common cultural In the Individual Human Life concepts. In other branches of the Western In addition to applying to the history Esoteric Tradition, the mystical return to the and structure of the universe, this pattern One is known as the spiritual ascent, union of procession and return also applies to the with God, reintegration, etc. individual human life. The Neoplatonists believed that each human soul originates In Mystical Religious Traditions from the divine level, and that it descends In Jewish Kabbalah, the material world through the seven spheres of the planets to is seen as the end product of a series of arrive on earth and enter a physical body. As successive emanations from the original it descends, the soul is “stained” and weighed infinite oneness, called Ain Sof. In one down by taking on characteristics from each version, the Ain Sof emanates the highest, of the planets it passes near. (That is how most spiritual world (the World of Nearness), one’s personality and fate are affected by which in turn emanates the next lower level the positions of the various planets at the (the World of Creation), which emanates the time of birth.) During one’s life, the soul is next lower level (the World of Formation), described as imprisoned within the physical which emanates our physical world (the Rosicrucian Digest body. At the time of death, if the soul has World of Action). In another version, the No. 1 not been too attached to the material world Ain Sof emanates a series of ten Sefirot, or 2012 Page 12 vessels for the Divine Light. Each vessel this: to come out of disunity and vanity, (Sefirah) emanates the next lower vessel. At and to enter again into the one tree from each successive level, the Sefirot become which all of us stem.3 more and more “dense” and the Divine Light is more and more veiled, culminating again in our material world. One can then engage in meditation and other esoteric practices in an attempt to raise the soul (or consciousness) up through the four worlds or the ten Sefirot to obtain a direct experience of Divinity. Another system of spiritual ascent was used in the pre- Kabbalistic Jewish mysticism known as Merkavah Mysticism (the Way of the Chariot), which consisted of raising the soul up through a series of seven holy palaces (Hekhalot). The goal was to reach the seventh and highest palace, where one could obtain a vision of God’s throne similar to the one described by the prophet Ezekiel. This is reminiscent of the Neoplatonist ascent through the seven planetary spheres to The first representation of the sephirotic tree in print, in Joseph re-unite with the One. Gikatilla, Portae Lucis (Doors of Light), translated by Paulus Ricius (Augsburg, Germany: 1516). In esoteric Islam, the Sufi master Pir The Christian Neoplatonist known as Vilayat Inayat Khan said that the essence of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite described Sufism is “the story of every soul’s descent a hierarchy of nine orders of angels who into existence, its experiences of suffering exemplified the process of cosmic emanation brought about by separation from its original by passing on diminishing amounts of state of being, and the subsequent journey Divine Light to each subsequent lower level: of return and reawakening to its Divine nature.” 2 Hierarchy . . . ensures that when [the Jacob Boehme said the same thing about first rank of angels] . . . have received the essence of Christianity: this full and divine splendor they can The whole Christian religion consists then pass on this light generously and in this: that we learn to know ourselves, in accordance with God’s will to beings 4 what we are, where we have come from, further down the scale. how we left unity and entered into . . . [God] supernaturally pours out multiplicity, evil, and disjointed, strife- in splendid revelations to the superior filled life, and where we are to return from beings the full and initial brilliance of his this life in time. All that is necessary for astounding light, and successive beings us to know about religion derives from in their turn receive their share of the Page 13 divine beam, through the mediation In the Bible of their superiors. The beings who are The book of Genesis provides a version first to know God . . . ungrudgingly of “procession” from divine oneness in the impart to [those below them] the story of the Fall of Man. Adam and Eve glorious ray which has visited them so are exiled from communion with God in that their inferiors may pass this on to Paradise and expelled into the terrestrial those yet farther below them. Hence, world. There is a tradition that the angel on each level, predecessor hands on to Raziel taught Kabbalah to Adam so that successor whatever of the divine light human beings might one day return to he has received and this, in providential Paradise to be re-united with God. 5 proportion, is spread out to every being. In the book of Exodus [13:3], Egypt Martinism teaches that our original is called “The House of Bondage.”9 The estate is divine, but that there was a Fall from condition of the Israelites in bondage in this original divine status to a degraded state Egypt is analogous to the Neoplatonist of conflict and chaos, and that our purpose description of the human soul as imprisoned and goal is to return to that original Divine within the physical body. Leaving Canaan Estate, a process called “reintegration.” Louis and going “down into Egypt” is an echo of Claude de Saint-Martin said that Divine Adam’s Fall from Paradise. It is followed Union is the true end of man; that we are by a return via the Exodus from Egypt to a all widowed and we are called to a second direct encounter with God at Mount Sinai. marriage.6 Thereafter, God literally dwells among the In addition to individually seeking people. The Shekhinah, God’s presence reunion or reintegration with Divinity for in the terrestrial world, was said actually ourselves, in Martinism, as in Lurianic to reside in the Tabernacle and later in Kabbalah, human beings have the special Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. purpose and function of bringing about the There was another echo of this reintegration of the entire world with its archetypal pattern when Nebuchadnezzar’s divine source. In the Kabbalistic system of army destroyed Solomon’s Temple and Isaac Luria, sparks of the emanated divine carried the Israelites out of Jerusalem into light have become trapped or imprisoned exile in Babylonia. When Babylon was later within the matter of the physical world, and conquered by the Persians, the Israelites were the practices of Kabbalah serve to liberate permitted to return to Jerusalem and begin those holy sparks and raise them back up to rebuilding the Temple. Stories of exile and their divine source. This process of raising yearning for restoration are also versions of the holy sparks of light is called Tikkun the archetypal theme of “Procession and Olam, or “repairing the world.” Tikkun, or Return.” repairing, is associated with the Kabbalistic Each of the ten Sefirot in the Kabbalistic concept of the Mashiach, or Messiah. In the Tree of Life symbolizes the expression of Martinist tradition, Martínez de Pasquales Divinity on a different level in the sequence and Louis Claude de Saint-Martin also used of emanations, and each Sefirah carries a this same term, “The Repairer,” to refer to different Name of God. So it seems as if the Christ.7 Gershom Scholem, pioneer of the Divine Oneness itself is fragmented the modern academic study of Kabbalah, into separate entities. The Shekhinah is the often translated the Kabbalistic concept of manifestation of the Divine Presence here in 8 Rosicrucian Tikkun as “reintegration.” the terrestrial world, as distinct from Ain Sof, Digest No. 1 2012 Page 14 the infinite and transcendent Godhead. In The Renaissance humanists believed a sense, God is in exile from Himself. But in an ancient prisca theologia, or primordial the Biblical prophet Zechariah [14:9] says religious tradition, which contained the that one day “God will be One and His highest knowledge of Divinity, and which Name will be One.” Martinism speaks of had been lost over time. This motivated reintegrating Divinity, and this is also a major their interest in rediscovering and translating aspect of Lurianic Kabbalah. Re-uniting the works from ancient Greek philosophy, the various aspects of God as they are manifested Hermetic writings, and the Jewish Kabbalah. at each level of emanation is thus another They believed that all of these traditions expression of the theme of Procession and flowed from the same, more ancient source, Return. the prisca theologia. For example, in the sixteenth century, the Christian Kabbalist Johann Reuchlin wrote that “Pythagoras In Cultural Concepts drew his stream of learning from the Another version of the theme of a Fall boundless sea of the Kabbalah,”10 and from an earlier splendor to the current “Almost all Pythagoras’ system is derived debased condition is expressed in the idea of from the Kabbalists.”11 The Renaissance the Golden Age. According to this idea, at humanists hoped that by rediscovering the some time in the past, people were wiser and ancient pagan and Jewish esoteric traditions more noble, they possessed secret knowledge and incorporating them into their Christian that has been lost, they were closer to system, they could regain the previous, more Divinity and more in harmony with natural intimate and authentic, relationship with laws. But, for various reasons, humanity Divinity. has degenerated, become more selfish and Another example of this same theme is corrupt, and has lost the higher knowledge the idea of the Noble Savage; that primitive necessary for restoring our original status. cultures are more beneficent, more moral, But it is possible for us to regain the lost and more attuned to Divinity and natural wisdom and return to our previous noble law, and that modern society has fallen from estate. The story of Atlantis is a well-known this noble status to become corrupt, debased, version of this archetypal pattern. and disconnected from our source.

Moses on Mount Sinai. Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904).

Page 15 This is also echoed in the concept of childhood as an idealized state of natural goodness and closeness to Divinity, which is debased and lost through the corrupting effects of childrearing practices, socialization, and education. In its most generalized form, this archetype finds expression in the ubiquitous human experience of nostalgia, the yearning to return to an earlier and better existence.

Uniting Heaven and Earth Return or reintegration can also be expressed as uniting the Divine world and the physical world. This is expressed in some Gnostic Christian writings. In the Bruce Codex, a Coptic papyrus from the second or third century, Jesus says: Happy is the man . . . who has brought down Heaven unto Earth, who has ENDNOTES taken the Earth and raised it to the 1 R. T. Wallis, Neoplatonism, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Heavens, so that they are no longer Hackett Publishing Company, 1995), 59. divided. . . If you know my Word you 2Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Awakening: A Sufi Experience (New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 2000), may make Heaven descend upon Earth 3-4. so that it may abide in you.12 3Arthur Versluis, ed., The Wisdom of Jacob Böhme (Minneapolis: New Grail Publishing, 2003), 13. A verse from the Gospel of Thomas says: 4Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, The Celestial Hierarchy. In Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete His students said to him, Works, trans. Colm Luibheid (New York: Paulist When will the kingdom come? Press, 1987), 154 [165A]. 5Ibid., 178 [301B-301C]. Yeshua said, 6“Portrait de M. de Saint-Martin, fait par lui- It will not come because you are même,” in Œuvres Posthumes, 2 vols., 1807. Cited watching for it. No one will announce, in A. E. Waite, Saint-Martin: The French Mystic and the Story of Modern Martinism (Kila, MT: Kessinger “Look here it is,” or “Look, there it is.” Publishing Company, 1992), 19. The father’s kingdom is spread out upon 7Christian Rebisse, “Ieschouah: Grand Architect of 13 the Universe,” Pantacle 2 (2002): 3. the earth and people do not see it. 8Steven M. Wasserstrom, Religion After Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos (Princeton: Princeton University Press, And so, reintegration with the One 1999), 38-39. can also mean an enduring change in 9Biblical translations in this article use the King James Version. consciousness, in which we integrate the 10Johann Reuchlin, On the Art of the Kabbalah [De highest states of consciousness into our Arte Cabalistica], trans. Martin & Sarah Goodman daily lives, so that we experience the unity (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), 233. 11Ibid., 241. underlying the multiplicity of the world; we 12Cited in Nevill Drury, The Gods of Rebirth see the radiance of the Divine Light shining (London: Prism Press, 1988), 54. 13The Gospel of Thomas. In The Gnostic Bible, through the veil of matter; we experience the eds. Willis Barnstone & Marvin Meyer (Boston: Rosicrucian presence of God in our everyday lives. Shambhala Publications, 2003), 69. Digest No. 1 2012 Page 16 The Strange Enigma of Plotinus

Charles Getts

or five centuries after the death of philosophy, and his name is often given as Aristotle in 322 BCE, the ancient its founder instead of that of Ammonius FWestern world produced no great Saccas. After his death, his writings had an philosophers. The grandeur and power of Rome incalculable effect upon Christianity up to had risen to its zenith and was now sinking. the period of the Middle Ages. The classic deities were beginning to fade before Then, if these words of praise from later the light of the new religion, Christianity. historians are true, why were his ideas and Then, in the third century, all of the glory of old teachings seemingly lost to the world and his Greece in the days of the great Plato returned name now known to few apart from students in the genius of a humble man by the name of interested in ancient philosophy? Plotinus. While some of the world’s thinkers, Let us consider the few facts and the since his time, have not agreed with his ideas, scattered information that have come down and many have not understood them, they have to us regarding his life. Then, as we consider all accorded him the highest accolades. In this a small part of his writings expressing a few article, Charles Getts introduces us to “The of the ideas of his great mystical philosophy, Strange Enigma of Plotinus.” together with the later course of history at that time, we will be able to piece together the answer to this enigma. He was born in Lycopolis, Egypt, He has been called one of the world’s in either 204 or 205 CE. As his name is greatest mystic-philosophers as well as the Roman, it is believed that his parents were greatest individual thinker between Aristotle of Roman descent. This is conjecture as and Descartes. Plotinus is considered to have Plotinus never talked of his parents or of his surpassed Plato, the man whose teachings personal life. As it is known from his writings he so admired, in spiritual profundity of that he believed in reincarnation, one writer thought. He added the fire of inspiration is of the opinion that his reticence in talking to Neoplatonism, the last school of Greek of his private life indicated his regret and

Page 17 even shame at the necessity of being reborn For many years he taught only orally, upon Earth. In his youth he is said to have following the ancient custom of the sages of searched for knowledge in the great Egyptian the Mysteries as well as of his teacher Saccas, city of Alexandria which was a center of in which the secret knowledge is given only world culture and outranked even the glory to those proved to be trusted seekers of of Athens. In it stood Jewish synagogues as Truth. well as temples for the worship of the deities However, as he became more famous, he of Egypt; Greek schools of idealistic theories was persuaded to put his ideas and lessons competed for disciples with the preachers of into writing. It was at this time, 263 CE, Christianity. It was here, in Alexandria, that that a student by the name of Porphyry Plotinus, now twenty-eight years of age, came to him from Greece. It was Porphyry found a teacher of the ideas of Plato whose who began the task of putting the writings name was Ammonius Saccas. into a systematic order. He arranged fifty- Saccas, who was known as the “Divinity- four discourses of Plotinus into six groups instructed,” was also the teacher of Origen, of nine and, because of this, the entire work recognized as one of the world’s greatest is known as the Enneads. Porphyry also scholars. He left no writings but there is added a short biography of Plotinus to the little doubt that he was an collection of writings. Initiate and well informed It was probably an During these later as to the occult teachings years of his life in including the Egyptian introduction to the Rome, we see a brief Mysteries. He must have also teachings of Buddha glimpse into his personal been acquainted with Indian given to him by Saccas character when we religion. that made Plotinus learn that his house was It was probably an often filled with orphan introduction to the teachings determine to learn children left in his care of Buddha given to him by more of Indian and by wealthy guardians for Saccas that made Plotinus also Persian religions short periods of time. determine to learn more In the unsettled of Indian and also Persian capital of the collapsing religions. After ten years of study under Roman Empire, the house and school of his brilliant teacher, he left Alexandria and Plotinus became an island of refuge and joined the Emperor Gordian III in an peaceful inspiration to many of the nobility expedition to the East in the year 244 CE. who realized that the days of Rome’s This soon proved to be disastrous when the greatness were over. Emperor was murdered and Plotinus was forced to flee to the city of Antioch. Later So effective was the personal charm of in this same year he went to Rome where he Plotinus in his relationship with his guests lived the rest of his life. that, in the course of time, he even gained the favor of Emperor Gallienus. Plotinus took School of Mystical Philosophy advantage of this good fortune to request It was in Rome, at the age of forty, the aid of the Emperor in the fulfilling of that Plotinus formed a school in which a personal dream. He desired permission he taught a mystical-philosophical system to rebuild a ruined town in Campania and based on the ideas of both Plato and make it into a Utopia which he proposed to Rosicrucian Aristotle as well as upon his own experiences name Platonopolis in honor of the famous Digest in cosmic revelation while in a state of Greek philosopher. It would be a city ruled No. 1 2012 superconsciousness. by philosophic ideas of humanity’s inherent Page 18 goodness and its true relationship with the These psychic revelations in a state of Absolute One. ecstasy, which was apparently a condition This idealistic venture failed to similar to Nirvana, clearly indicate that materialize evidently because of either court Plotinus was an Initiate and versed in the jealousy and intrigue or perhaps simply a occult mysteries, taught to him no doubt by change of heart on the part of the Emperor. Ammonius Saccas. In the year 270 CE, Plotinus became It cannot be expected that the person seriously ill of a throat infection which, in unfamiliar with such things as the Cosmic the opinion of one biographer, was a form of will understand much of these highly leprosy. He left Rome and took a house in mystical revelations. While they may seem Campania where he died at the age of sixty- illogical to skeptics, they are in reality five. superlogical. The Hindu statement, “That art thou,” (Tat twam asi) is one of the most profound truths ever discovered by Gaining Wisdom humanity; yet to the uninitiated it holds It would, of course, be impossible to no meaning whatsoever and even appears explain in the length of this article the absurd. Much of the writings of Plotinus substance of the philosophy of Plotinus. suffer this same misunderstanding due to He went far beyond the intellectualism of their high logic and occult meaning. the old Greek schools and One of the tenets of into a vibrant, mystical The wisdom of his philosophy was that the division of consciousness as this Supreme One, person who sees, “is itself being sleep, dream, ecstasy the thing, which is seen.” that he claimed to be the he stated, would The great German mystic- only way of reaching an never be reached by priest of the Dominican understanding and union humanity through Order, Meister Eckhart, with the Divine which any process of sole said the same thing in his he termed the One, or words, “The knower and Good. The wisdom of this reason the known are one.” Supreme One, he stated, The well-known Russian philosopher, would never be reached by humanity Ouspensky, explains the above words through any process of sole reason. of Plotinus by stating that he meant the It is apparent that the realization faculty of seeing is related to, and a form of, described by Plotinus is very similar to that consciousness. Ouspensky then mentions found in both Buddhism and Hinduism. the Hindu divisions of consciousness as This is revealed in such phrases as “immersed being sleep, dream, waking, and turiya, or in the Divine” and “One preserves nothing Samadi. This last condition is what Plotinus of one’s I.” calls a form of ecstasy which is the highest Porphyry tells us that this state of being attainable by humans. in union with the One happened to Plotinus In the Letters to Flaccus, Plotinus claims on four occasions and during the period that “external objects present us only with in which he taught in the school at Rome. appearances.” Therefore, he states, we would Another source states that Plotinus had three be more accurate in saying that we have only of these experiences before Porphyry became an opinion of them and not a knowledge. his student, so this would make a total of The truth, to him, cannot be found in seven times that he entered into Cosmic anything external as it is within us. The Consciousness. words of Christ are brought to mind, “the Page 19 kingdom of God is within you.” All of the thinking when he repeatedly uses his ideas in ideas of which the world is made up are, describing the spiritual aspects of the Divine. in the theory of Plotinus, within our own In the opinion of one biographer, the thinking. Therefore the action necessary to personal testimony of Plotinus in regard to reach truth is an “agreement of the mind the truth of his mystic revelations and the with itself.” beauty of the world of spirit was, of course, Let us now return to our question: Why no longer available after his death, and his did his name fade into obscurity? “ideal world no longer was attainable by others but became something visionary First it must be understood that while and dreamlike.” Another writer states Plotinus was the last of the pagan Greek that, through the “spiritual intermediary” philosophers, he was also, although this fact of Augustine, the ideas of Plotinus have is unrecognized, the first of the great religious endured in Christianity down to the present mystics of the Christian Church. day. His mystical ideas were absorbed into Thus it came about that, in an ironic the Christianized Western world by two twist of history, the thoughts of a great men in particular, Augustine and Dionysius person who lived back in the third century in the fourth century. In his book The have endured even to the present, while the City of God, Augustine plainly reveals the name of the person himself is long lost in powerful influence Plotinus had over his obscurity.

Plotinus (204 – 270 CE). Rosicrucian Digest No. 1 2012 Page 20 The Great Library of Alexandria Bill Anderson, FRC

n this article, Bill Anderson, FRC, presents In 332 BCE, after defeating the Persian the Great Library of Alexandria. During army at the battle of lssus, Alexander the Iancient times and today, the Library of Great turned south towards Egypt, where Alexandria serves as “a center of excellence he was acknowledged as pharaoh. His in the production and dissemination of cousin Ptolemy was with Alexander when he knowledge and a place of dialogue, learning, traveled to the oasis of Siwa in the Western and understanding between cultures and Desert, to confer with the oracle of the god peoples” (the mission statement of the modern Amun, “the Hidden One.” This proved to Bibliotecha Alexandrina).1 be a life-changing moment for Alexander. Prior to the epiphany at Siwa, he was just a successful Greek general; after it, he acquired the vision of a universal empire of equals, a Ancient Alexandria was the epitome very un-Greek thought, as every petty city- of culture, elegance, and learning in the state of the time was divided into citizens, Mediterranean and European worlds for non-citizens, and slaves. Alexander’s vision centuries; and the resonance of its intellectual was responsible for the creation of this might survives to present times. To the marvelous city on the northwest coast of the Romans it was Alexandria ad Aegyptum; Egyptian delta. Alexandria “near” not “in” Egypt. To them it Alexandria was founded in 331 BCE was a bridge between mystical Egypt and the and Alexander wanted his city to become more pragmatic West. a megalopolis, one of the great cities of the In the fifth century BCE, the Golden world. He took Aristotle’s plans for an ideal Age of Classical Greece, book collecting city and put them into practice. Its walls was still very uncommon. As the fourth were over 10 miles in circumference. Its century went on, private scroll collections streets were of exceptional width, 100 feet in and libraries became more numerous. the case of the two main streets, and 50 feet Works on a wide variety of subjects were for the rest. This far exceeded anything that collected, including drama and poetry. had been seen before. The rectangular grid However, the first recorded public library of streets was designed to allow sea breezes wasn’t until about the time of Alexander to blow through the city. From the date of the Great. The philosopher Aristotle, a man its foundation, Alexandria became the seat of great learning, who was also Alexander’s of government in Egypt, a situation that tutor, had amassed a large personal library lasted for nearly 1,000 years until the Arab encompassing all the arts and sciences of his conquest in 640 CE. age. Legend has it that when the Ptolemies constructed the Great Library at Alexandria, Foundation of the Museum it was arranged according to Aristotle’s model After Alexander’s death in the city of of his own personal library. Babylon, his cousin Ptolemy hijacked the

Page 21 body, which was on its way back to Greece, arts. Strabo, the celebrated ancient traveler and diverted it to Alexandria, where he at the beginning of the Common Era, who housed it in the showpiece building known lived from 64 BCE to 25 CE studied in as the Soma. Ptolemy ascended to the throne Alexandria for a long time. In his Geography of the pharaohs as Ptolemy I Soter, the (Book 17) he mentions the Mouseion as a founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty. With his part of the royal palaces. It had a public walk, complex Mediterranean policy, there were three porticoes around an exedra with seats good reasons why Ptolemy chose Alexandria where philosophers, rhetoricians, and others as his capital, rather than the more traditional would go to listen to lectures and discussions. capital of Memphis. Outside the large main building there In the context of the new Hellenistic were sleeping quarters and a refectory. The world, Alexandria, as a port city, looked scholars held all property in common. The outwards to the world. Ptolemy felt that his entire complex was richly endowed and new capital needed its own spiritual center contained lecture rooms, laboratories, a of learning, as a counterweight to ancient zoological, and a botanical garden. They Egyptian science and culture, and to that started a project to classify the world’s other Greek center of learning, Athens. To flora and fauna, following the example of fulfill this need, he established the Museum Aristotle. Efforts were made to acclimatize (Mouseion in Greek) within the Basileia or plants from other parts of the world with the royal precinct of the city, on the eastern side intention of growing them commercially. As of Alexandria. In the Brucheion quarter of a center for teaching and research, it became the city, it was a collection of palaces and the first scholarly academy in the western parks like the Forbidden City in Beijing or sense of the word. In 297 BCE Demetrios the Kremlin in Moscow. of Phaleron, the ex-Athenian statesperson, The Mouseion, a great complex of peripatetic philosopher, legal scholar, and buildings, was erected on land adjacent rhetorician, who had been driven out of to the royal palace and between it and the Athens during the civil wars after the death Mausoleum of Alexander in the Soma. It of Alexander, arrived in Alexandria and was designed to be a shrine of the Muses, was cordially received by Ptolemy I, who the Greek goddesses of literature and the promoted him to royal councilor for cultural

Rosicrucian Digest No. 1 2012 Ancient Alexandria. Braun & Hogenberg, Civitates Orbis Terrarum (ca.1573). Page 22 affairs. Together they conceived of a place themselves primarily to scholarship, but also that would bring together all the learning of to education. Apart from research into all the world. the sciences, they also studied literature and The culturally receptive environment philology. It was Ptolemy II Philadelphos cultivated by Ptolemy I, who was a who was mainly responsible for Alexandria’s historian himself, drew scholars, writers, library collection. and philosophers to his court from all over The Mouseion was a crucible where the Greek world. In the realm of cultural the ideas of Hellenic civilization interacted history, the greatest contribution of the with the mathematical and astronomical Ptolemaic rulers was the establishment and knowledge of ancient Egyptian civilization, development of Alexandria as an intellectual jealously preserved over the millennia by center. More importantly, the literary and the Egyptian clergy, but which the Greeks intellectual heritage of ancient Greece was held in high regard. Alexandria and the collected and edited in the Mouseion and Mouseion were responsible for a whole series ultimately prepared for transmission to of discoveries, some of which were lost in the posterity. The Hellenistic rulers realized following centuries. that if they were to rule all their new The library was not open to the subjects, they must understand them; and public. It was reserved only for the scholars to understand them, they must collect their attached to the Mouseion (like a modern scrolls and have them translated into Greek. research institute). The very first problem Knowledge was power, and they wanted the that the Ptolemies faced was acquisitions. knowledge of the world under their control. Egypt boasted a long and distinguished The Ptolemies, who were the rivals of the history and there were many scrolls in the Attalid Dynasty of Pergamon, forbade the Egyptian language scattered throughout export of papyrus. Egypt was the habitat, the land. They could buy Greek scrolls in par excellence, of the papyrus plant. This “book markets” in Athens, Rhodes, and ensured its rulers a monopoly on the world’s other centers of Greek culture. But the prime writing material. But it was in vain, as Ptolemies had wealth and single-minded the Attalids invented a new writing material determination. They sent agents out with called parchment. well-filled purses and orders to buy whatever scrolls they could on every kind of subject— Ancient Egypt had always had libraries, the older the copy the better. Older books attached to the main temples, and available were preferred because they were likely to only to the clergy. This was perhaps not as have suffered less recopying and were less exclusive as it may at first appear, since many likely to have errors. Their agents did this people took a turn at being a clergy person so energetically that they spawned a new in a temple for three months at a time. But industry, the forging of old copies. The the books were not available to the public Ptolemies also confiscated books found on in general. The temple records and books ships that docked at Alexandria. The owners were however made available, so it has been were given copies while the originals went to related, to the members of the Mystery the Great Library. Schools attached to the main temples in Special attention was paid to the classics Memphis, Thebes, and particularly in of Greek literature. They collected together Heliopolis, today a suburb of Cairo. copies of Homer from every part of the Greek world in order to compile a definitive The Great Library version. Thus they established a standard Members of the Mouseion were text for the most cherished books in Greek paid by the treasury and had to dedicate literature. Page 23 Newly acquired books were stacked temple of the deities Serapis, Isis, and their in warehouses while they went through a son Harpocrates that stood on one of the preliminary procedure. Rolls usually had a few hills in the city. A flight of one hundred tab attached to one end bearing the author’s steps led up to this “daughter library,” so name and ethnicity. called because it contained copies of works The ethnicity was held in the Great Library. essential because the Greeks It was a temple library had only one name and It is estimated that very much like the library different people often had there were 490,000 of Pergamon, which was the same name. Some rolls located in the precinct were also marked with their rolls in the main of the temple of Athena provenance. The policy library and 42,800 in Polias, and it reflected the was to acquire everything the daughter library. long-standing tradition of from exalted epic poetry to temple libraries in Egypt. cookbooks. The Ptolemies We know almost aimed to make the collection not only a nothing about the physical arrangements. comprehensive repository of Greek writings, The main library likely consisted of a but also a tool for research. colonnade with rooms behind. The rooms They also included translations in Greek would serve for shelving the rolls and the of important works in other languages. colonnade provided space for readers. It is Large numbers of Jews had been encouraged estimated that there were 490,000 rolls in to come to Alexandria. They became the main library and 42,800 in the daughter thoroughly Hellenized and spoke only library. But many rolls held more than Greek, and could no longer understand the one work. At the head of the library was original Hebrew or Aramaic, so Ptolemy II the Director appointed by the court, an gave seventy rabbis the task of translating intellectual luminary who often served as the Pentateuch, the first five books of the tutor to the royal children. Old Testament, known as the Septuagint. This first Greek version of the Hebrew Bible Who Was Who? was completed around 130 BCE. Rolls of The Director, or Priest of the Muses, papyrus were collected in every tongue: which was a very influential position, was Hebrew, Aramaic, Nabataean, Arabic, appointed by the Ptolemaic rulers, then by Indian, and ancient Egyptian. All were the Roman emperors. translated into Greek. The translations of the Persian writings attributed to Zoroaster The first Director of the Great Library alone came to over two million lines of verse. was Zenodotos of Ephesus. His successor They also translated the Egyptian History of was Apollonius of Rhodes, who composed the famous priest Manetho, who worked at the famous epic the Argonautica and was Heliopolis, and from which we obtained the the tutor of Ptolemy III. Being raised in list of dynasties we use today. It must have this intellectual environment ensured that seemed as if the Ptolemies aimed to collect the kings made efforts to seek out talented every book in the world. minds from all over the Greek world and invite them to Alexandria. Zenodotus’s first step was the The Daughter Library classification system according to the nature Rosicrucian To complement the Great Library, of their contents: verse or prose, literary or Digest No. 1 Ptolemy III Euergetes had a second library scientific. The next step was to assign rooms 2012 built in the newly erected Serapeion, the or part of rooms to the various categories Page 24 of writings. The works were then arranged in astronomy and geography, he calculated in alphabetical order by author on the the circumference of Earth. He was also a shelves. This brings us to one of the great historian and poet. contributions that we owe to the scholars Aristophanes of Byzantium was Director of the library of Alexandria: alphabetical from 205–185 BCE, and Aristarchus of order as a means of organization. Zenodotus Samos from 175–145 BCE. He calculated was also the first to compile a glossary of the distance from Earth to the Moon and rare words. He needed staff as well: sorters, became famous for postulating a heliocentric checkers, clerks, pages, copyists, and system where Earth and planets went round repairers—and it is likely that a great many the Sun, 1,500 years before Copernicus. of them were slaves. Together they brought the focus back to It was Callimachus of Cyrene, a literature and language, and made this half- towering figure in the history of the library century a golden age for research in those and in the field of scholarship, who rose to fields. become one of the most influential figures Many other great minds came to of intellectual life in Alexandria. During the Alexandria. The first physician to come reign of Ptolemy II, he compiled an index was Praxagoras of Kos, who brought the of books listing all the titles in the Great Hippocratic tradition to Alexandria. His Library. However, his greatest achievement student, Herophilos of Chalkedon, was was entitled Tables of Persons in Every one of the most important doctors in Branch of Learning, together with a List of Alexandria. He made dissection a regular Their Writings or just Pinakes, meaning practice and accomplished groundbreaking “Tables.” It was a detailed bibliographical work in medical terminology. He deduced survey of all Greek writings, occupying that the brain, not the heart, was the seat of over 120 books. He made the initial basic intelligence, and isolated both the nervous division into poetry and prose, and broke systems and the arterial system. down each into subdivisions. For poetry Euclid, the famous mathematician and there was a table of dramatic poets, with geometer, came from the Platonic Academy a breakdown into writers of tragedy and in Athens to teach in Alexandria. Archimedes another of writers of comedy; of Syracuse spent some time a table of epic poets; one of at Alexandria, as did Konon lyric poets; for prose there of Samos who is credited was a table of philosophers, with the theory of conic of orators, historians, sections. Apollonius of Perge, writers on medicine, and another great mathematician even a miscellaneous table. and geometer also spent time Each table contained a here. list of authors with a brief In the first century biographical sketch, father’s CE, Heron of Alexandria name, birthplace, and also Eratosthenes of Cyrene. published various works a nickname if they had one. such as the Pneumatica, And so, a vital reference tool was created. where he explained how to boil water and The universal scholar Eratosthenes of channel steam into a pipe, long before James Cyrene came from Athens and became Watt. The Dioptra described the principles Director of the library (245–205 BCE) of magnifying lenses. In the Hydraulica he after Apollonius of Rhodes. He was also demonstrated the mechanism of a hydraulic the tutor of Ptolemy IV Philopator. Skilled lifting device. In the Mechanics, he discussed

Page 25 the number of pulleys needed to lift a weight comprehensive, collected books from all of so many tons to a given height. over the known world, and it was public, in the sense that it was open to anyone with An End and a Beginning scholarly or literary qualifications. It was the The date of the library’s destruction has ancient version of a think tank. long been a matter of debate. Was it when In 1974 it was decided to build a Julius Caesar set fire to the warehouses new library in the city, the Bibliotheca during the civil war in Egypt? Or perhaps it Alexandrina. With UNESCO backing, the happened during the civil disturbances in the work of creating the new library was started second half of the third century under the in 1988 and the complex was officially Emperor Aurelian (270-275)? Or perhaps it inaugurated in 2002. This new building, was during the religious disturbances in the with its highly original design, occupies fifth century, when the Serapeion library was part of the Ancient Palaces section of the destroyed by Christian fanatics? Or was it city, not far, it is thought, from where the when the Arabs conquered the city in 640? original Great Library actually stood. It is a There is no clear answer, though present circular structure, evoking the rising Sun. scholarship suggests that most of the library Throughout the day, sunlight highlights was destroyed or dispersed in 272 CE during incised letters in scripts from all over the the civil war, when the Brucheion quarter of world. Inside, there is a single vast reading the city was destroyed by Aurelian. room with six hundred columns evoking The library was the first and greatest the papyriform columns of ancient Egyptian of its kind in ancient times. It was temples.

The Ancient Library of Alexandria.

Rosicrucian Digest No. 1 2012 Page 26 The Modern Bibliotheca Alexandrina

Today’s Library of Alexandria features inscriptions set in a dynamic work of architecture, a building that seems in motion rising toward the Sun as if in orbit.

The collection of the modern Bibliotheca Alexandrina includes: the Rose+Croix Code of Life (trans- lated into 24 languages); So Mote It Be by Imperator Christian Bernard; Rosicrucian History and Mys- teries by Frater Christian Rebisse; Master of the Rose Cross: A Collection of Essays By and About Harvey Spencer Lewis; Treasures of the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum: A Catalogue; Spiritual Laws that Govern Humanity and the Universe by Frater Lonnie Edwards, M.D., and other Rosicrucian titles.

ENDNOTES 1Bibliotecha Alexandrina, The New Library of Alexandria, “Mission Statement,” http://www.bibalex.org/ aboutus/mission_en.aspx.

Page 27 Hypatia of Alexandria Valerie Dupont, SRC

n her book, Feminin Actif, Feminin Solaire (Active Feminine, Solar Feminine) IValerie Dupont, SRC, author and RCUI instructor for the French Grand Lodge, presents a brief biography of one of the most extraordinary women in history, the great Neoplatonist, Hypatia of Alexandria.

Hypatia (370 – 410 CE) was the daughter of the great Theon Alexandricus, who was one of the most eminent scholars of his time—a renowned mathematician and geometrician. According to some of her father’s contemporaries, Hypatia who was taught by her father, surpassed him in mathematics by supporting and continuing his work. She also did extensive research in astronomy. Even more, she did not settle for just these scientific studies, but very early on became interested in Neoplatonic mysticism, developed by Plotinus a century before. She was a disciple of Ammonios and so surpassed the thinkers of her time (and according to various accounts, even some of those who preceded her) in knowledge Ancient Faiyum portrait of Hypatia. and wisdom that she obtained a chair in mathematics and philosophy at the Platonic and the quality of its teaching, a great future school of Alexandria. There, she developed for many centuries. the ideas of her predecessors—Plotinus and Hypatia’s disciples were numerous Iamblichus—but by giving them a scientific and enthusiastic. She instructed them in and methodical dimension, she immediately all the sciences, attracting many students earned a great reputation. Her courses had not only because of her knowledge and the an unprecedented success. depth of her reflections, but also because of For many, she is the true founder of her exceptionally radiant personality. Very Rosicrucian the famous school of Alexandria, the most beautiful, she was known for a great purity Digest reputable institution of her time, which in morality and an impressive authority, No. 1 would have, because of its solid foundation nevertheless mixed with modesty. 2012 Page 28 None of her writings remain; only a time had a much deeper significance than few titles of her great treatises and works. today: the philosopher was not in fact a However, as with Pythagoras, we can capture simple intellectual or student; but a master some aspects of her character thanks to the renowned for wisdom and knowledge, and accounts of those around her. In particular very few had a right to this title. the letters of Synesius of Cyrene (her disciple, Synesius also tells us that Hypatia’s although they were the same age) are full of abilities surpassed the framework of respect and affection for her. speculative knowledge. In fact one day he However, Synesius was not easy to asked her in a letter to build a hydroscope impress. We know that he was a man with (used to determine the purity of water) renowned authority, who was not afraid for him. In another letter he asked for an to lecture the emperor on morality, and astrolabe, a sort of planisphere. These details who was given the military organization prove that the talents of this uncommon of the borders, and we suspect that he was woman applied at many levels, both in not enthusiastic about everyone. When in theories and pedagogy, technically and 410, even though he was not religious, he for scientific accomplishments. All of this was offered a position as bishop (the most presents before our wondering spirit the important social function of the time), he image of a sort of feminine Aristotle (for laid out his conditions: he wanted to remain the longevity of the school she founded, married and not to renounce the doctrines of but not for the contents of the theses, hers the pre-existence of the soul and the eternity were much more mystical than Aristotle’s), a of the world that he had learned from Leonardo da Vinci before his time… Hypatia, which were contrary to Christian She therefore enjoyed widespread dogmas. admiration and respect from all, pagans In regards to these various elements, and Christians. There is no doubt that she we can truly consider Synesius as a credible exerted some political influence, which witness about Hypatia, and we can believe soon attracted the jealousy of a small group without any reservation the opinion he had of mediocre spirits. Her end was very sad. of her. In one letter, he called her his mother, A dissension arose between the archbishop his daughter, his doctor, Cyril of Alexandria and his benefactor, while For many, she is the true the prefect of this city, saying that she deserved who was Hypatia’s friend. even more respectable founder of the famous Hypatia was blamed for titles, if any existed. school of Alexandria, the dissension. One day Elsewhere, he wrote: “If the most reputable a small group of fanatical it is true that the deceased institution of her time Christians followed her lose the memories while she was strolling of one another, I will still and abducted her. She preserve the memory of Hypatia, for whom I was brought to a church, beaten to death, had so much friendship.” flayed, and burned. This is to say that he admitted having Among the other women Platonists of been intensely marked by the personality of this time, we can mention those who alas this initiate, and in such a profound manner are no more. Only names without a face: that her influence could surpass the limits of Gemina, mother and daughter (disciples of an incarnation, like something learned by Plotinus), Amphiclea (Iamblichus’s daughter- the soul and transcending the cerebral plane. in-law), or at a more remote time, Arria In his other letters, he always referred (to whom Diogenes Laertius dedicated his to her as a philosopher, a word that at the Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Page 29 a reference work of the first order)… These We can see that some of them truly women, often cited by the authors of enlightened their era, such as supernovas in their time, were probably all remarkable. often darkened skies. To this effect, Ahmose- However, lacking more precise elements, Nefertari, Theano, Sappho, Ban Zhao, and we must only imagine what they must have Hypatia, figure among humanity’s most been like. Their existence allows us, however, eminent representatives. to affirm that women played an important With Hypatia, we can even say that part in philosophy. we have met the Exception: there are, in Thus, we realize, by searching fact, few beings, men or women, who have persistently, that in antiquity many women manifested so much intelligence, so much distinguished themselves by their wisdom inventive genius, knowledge, and at the same and brilliant culture. In actuality, they were time, such a degree of nobility. This is why no doubt more numerous than the few she remains no doubt unequalled in her personalities mentioned here, but the sample perfection. is sufficient to understand their positive Yet, which history books even mention action. her?

There was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions. On account of the self-possession and ease of manner, which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not infrequently appeared in public in the presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in going to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more.

—By Socrates Scholasticus, from Historia Ecclesiastica (written ca. 439 CE)

Rosicrucian Digest No. 1 2012 Page 30 HYPATIA

Page 31 Avicenna

Connie James, SRC

any people think that near Bukhara in modern Uzbekistan. His Neoplatonism flourished only in father was a member of the Ismaili sect and Mthe Roman Empire around the came from the city of Balkh. The Ismailis third and fourth centuries CE. However, it have esoteric doctrines, which developed re-emerged again in the Islamic lands in later under the influence of Gnosticism and centuries. In this article, Connie James, SRC, Neoplatonism. Avicenna was educated in presents the story of a great Muslim, pantheist, Bukhara, at that time the capital of the Neoplatonic philosopher, and mystic who Persian Samanid dynasty, the first native influenced Western thought for hundreds of dynasty to arise in Iran after the Arab years. conquest, and who were responsible for a new Persian renaissance. Bukhara was a trading, scientific and cultural center; one of the most ancient cities in Central Asia, once A thousand years ago the Muslim world conquered by Alexander the Great, when it had reached a high degree of civilization was a part of the Persian province of Sogdia. with a rich and diverse culture, great centers The name of the city is said to be derived of learning, a developed commerce, and a either from the Buddhist word “vihara” high standard of living. Muslim civilization meaning “monastery” or from a Zoroastrian exhibited a vitality and energy unmatched word meaning “source of knowledge.” The in backward Europe. In fact, the Muslim Samanids controlled Transoxiana (north of world, with its roots in what was left of the Oxus or Amu Darya river) and Khorâsân Classical civilization, acted as a cultural (south of the Oxus river). Bukhara and the bridge between the great civilizations of the nearby city of Samarkand were the cultural past and the later European Renaissance. centers of the kingdom and lay on the fabled Knowledge, which might have been lost, was Silk Road from China to the Mediterranean. preserved and elaborated upon. Building on Bukhara was known as “the meeting place what the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans of the highest intellectuals of the age, the had earlier synthesized, Muslim thinkers horizon of the literary stars of the world.” made much progress in science, particularly It attracted the greatest minds of the time. in mathematics, astronomy, alchemy, Although Persian was the spoken language of chemistry, physics, and medicine. Many the region, it was around this time that the great minds emerged as guiding lights of gradual turkicisation started in Transoxiana, this civilization. The one who is best known whose countries remain mainly Turkic in the West is the Persian physician and speaking to this day. philosopher Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (980 – Raised among the intellectuals Rosicrucian 1037). of Bukhara, Avicenna was exposed to Digest Abu Ali al-Hussain Ibn Abdallah Ibn philosophical and metaphysical ideas at an No. 1 2012 Sina was born in 980 at Afshaneh, a village early age. His father’s house was a meeting Page 32 place for people of learning in the area. He to Gurganj, the modern Köneürgench in amazed scholars who met at his father’s northern Turkmenistan, which was the house with his remarkable memory and sophisticated, cultured, and cosmopolitan ability to learn. Exceptionally bright, by the capital of the Khorezmshahs. There, the age of ten he had become well versed in the state-sponsored Academy of Learning study of the Qur’an, poetry, and various sparkled with the brilliance of such great sciences. Having mastered all branches of minds as Avicenna and al-Biruni. By day formal learning, including Euclid, law, and he lectured on law, logic, and astronomy, medicine, he became a physician at the age while in the evening he gathered students of sixteen. He also studied logic, philosophy, around him for philosophical and scientific and metaphysics. In his autobiography, discussion. Avicenna stated that he was more or less Later he travelled south into Persia, to self-taught, but that at crucial times in his Rey, just south of Tehran, where he started life he received help. At seventeen Avicenna a medical practice; and then later still, he successfully treated the seriously ill ruler of moved further west to Hamadân. There he Bukhara, the Shah Nuh ibn Mansur, when cured the ruling Buyid Amir of severe colic. his own doctors had given up hope. His For this he was made court physician and renown as a physician spread throughout vizier. A mutiny among the army caused his the Muslim world. Refusing any monetary dismissal and forced him to flee to Esfahân, reward, Avicenna asked only to be allowed disguised as a Sufi. But when the Amir’s free use of the royal library, which contained colic returned, he was summoned back; the many rare and unique books and was one Amir apologized to him and reinstated him. of the most extensive collections of works This was a very hectic time for Avicenna. on philosophy and science then extant. By day, as vizier, he was concerned with the Avicenna studied avidly, devouring all the administration, while the nights were spent contents of the library. By twenty one, he lecturing and dictating notes for his books. had composed his first book, and within a Students would gather at his home to read few years was recognized as one of the most his books, especially his two greatest, the learned people in the world. Shifa and the Qanun. If the fortunes of the Samanids had After the death of his patron in 1022, he taken a different turn, Avicenna’s life might went to Esfahân once again, only to return have been very different. The Shah had several years later to Hamadân, worn out by appointed Sebüktegin, a former Turkish hard work. His friends advised him to slow slave as governor of Ghazni in present-day down and take life in moderation, but this Afghanistan, and his son, Mahmud, was was not in his character and he died in 1037 made governor of Khorâsân. However the at the age of fifty-seven. His mausoleum, Turkish tribes already in Transoxiana joined with its twelve pillars, can still be seen in with the two governors in an attempt to Hamadân. overthrow the Shah. Bukhara was taken Avicenna’s writings on medicine and in 999, and it was during these turbulent the sciences brought him fame in both times when the newer Turkish elements the East and West. He wrote mainly in were replacing the Persian domination of Arabic, though some of his works were Central Asia that Avicenna’s father died. in his native Persian. His most famous Without the support of his father or his work, the Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb or “Canon patron, he travelled westward to Khiva, and of Medicine,” is an immense encyclopedia then to avoid being kidnapped by Sultan of over one million words, based on the Mahmud of Ghazni, he fled westward again findings of the Greeks, Romans, and Arabs,

Page 33 The opening decoration and invocation to Allah from Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine, copied in 1597-8. From the Medical Historical Library at Yale University. and containing all medical knowledge medicines. Due to its systematic approach, it available at the time. The Qanun or “Canon” superseded the works of Galen and remained as it was called in the West, was translated supreme for six centuries. His important into Latin in the twelfth century, and for contributions included such advances as several centuries thereafter, it was the medical the recognition of the contagious nature authority in both East and West, having of tuberculosis, the distribution of diseases reputedly had a significant influence on the by water and soil, the interaction between life and work of Leonardo da Vinci. It was psychology and health, and a treatise on divided into five books. The first deals with drugs. He was the first to describe meningitis general principles; the second with some and he made rich contributions to anatomy, 760 drugs arranged alphabetically; the third gynecology, and child health. He pointed Rosicrucian with diseases of the organs and other parts out the importance of diet, the importance Digest of the body; the fourth with diseases such of climate and environment on health, and No. 1 as fevers; and the fifth with compound the use of oral anesthetics. He noticed the 2012 Page 34 close relationship between emotions and One of his most celebrated Arabic poems the physical condition and felt that music describes the descent of the Soul into the had a definite physical and psychological body from the “Higher Sphere.” effect on patients. Avicenna’s early interest Among his major contributions to in medicine and science probably led to philosophy, and where he comes closest to his interest in alchemy. Along with many Rosicrucian ontology, are his discussions learned people of his time, he considered on reason and reality. He claimed that the alchemy to be of great importance. It was Divine is pure intellect and that knowledge through his alchemical researches that he was consists of the mind grasping the intelligible. able to produce many new compounds and He discussed the difference between reality medicines. and actuality, and examined the concept Avicenna is also remembered as a of “existence,” seeking to integrate all great philosopher. His early reading of aspects of science and religion into a grand Aristotle’s Metaphysics and the writings of metaphysical vision. Using this vision he other Greek thinkers led him to pursue tried to explain the formation of the universe. philosophy with an intense interest and He regarded the world as an emanation from original thinking, though he acknowledged the Divine, and what we see around us as his debt to al-Fârâbi, the real founder of a process of gradually evolving complexity Islamic Neoplatonism, and his avowed which through time, has resulted in the spiritual master. His own philosophy world we see around us today. Writing about combined elements of Aristotelianism and “Nous,” or the “Active Intellect” as he termed Neoplatonism, attempting to reconcile it, he believed in the existence of the soul Greek and Islamic beliefs. Mystical, and that the human body was composed of Hermetic, and Gnostic ideas are evident in both material and immaterial components. some of his later writings. His Kitab al-Shifa, He wrote about the use of intuition and the or “Book of Healing” is a vast scientific and nature of psychic events, and taught that philosophical work covering the natural the ultimate fate of the soul was to achieve sciences, mathematics based on Euclid’s “conjunction” with the Active Intellect or “Elements,” astronomy, music, philosophy, Nous, something akin perhaps to what we metaphysics, and various other subjects. would today call “Cosmic Consciousness.” It is a compilation of the entire corpus of The modern world owes much to this knowledge of the ancient world. In physics Muslim scientist-philosopher and mystic. It he studied the different forms of energy, heat has been said that his Shifa and Qanun mark and light, and the concepts of force, vacuum, the apex of medieval thought, and constitute and infinity. He made the observation that if one of the major syntheses in the history of the perception of light is due to the emission the mind. As Rosicrucians, we acknowledge of some sort of particles by a luminous the great part he played in upholding and source, the speed of light must be finite. He developing the tradition he traversed, one proposed an interconnection between time which has contributed greatly to our own and motion, and also commented upon teachings. gravity. Through careful observation he even deduced that the planet Venus must be closer to the Sun than Earth. Avicenna completed most of his works, both major and minor, in Arabic. But in his native Persian, he wrote a large manual on philosophy entitled the Danishnâme-ye Alai.

Page 35 Marsilio Ficino and Renaissance Neoplatonism

Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, D. Phil.

From pp. 33 – 40 of The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction, “Italian Renaissance Magic and Cabala” by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, ©2008. Reprinted with permission of Oxford University Press (www.oup.com).

icholas Goodrick-Clarke, (D. Phil., Alexandrian world culture for a millennium Oxon), is Professor of Western until the final onslaught of the Ottoman NEsotericism and Director of the Turks from Central Asia in 1453.2 Exeter Centre for the Study of Esotericism However, by the sixth century, the Arabs (http://centres.exeter.ac.uk/exeseso/), University were an ascendant power on Byzantium’s of Exeter, UK. In this article, Professor eastern flank, where they settled the Goodrick-Clarke introduces us to the Middle East and Egypt. Confronted by Neoplatonism of Renaissance Florence and the the ancient and mysterious cultures of eminent Neoplatonist, Marsilio Ficino, whose Egypt and Chaldea, Arabian culture swiftly concepts continue to influence us today. assimilated the esoteric sciences of astrology, alchemy, and magic, all based on ideas of correspondences between the divine, celestial, and earthly spheres. The Arabs The Byzantine Legacy were also fascinated by the figure of Hermes The history of Western esotericism in Trismegistus, and they produced their own the Middle Ages is largely one of exotic Hermetic literature with revelations of transmission. Following the sack of Rome in theosophy, astrology, and alchemy. The most A.D. 410, the western part of the empire was famous example, the Emerald Tablet (sixth to engulfed by the mass migration of barbarian eighth century A.D.), introduced the motto peoples, and the Eastern Roman Empire of “As above, so below,” which would become Byzantium (Constantinople) became the well known to the Western world after the principal channel of classical and Hellenistic fourteenth century.3 civilization. Hellenism had not only Michael Psellus, a Byzantine Platonist assimilated Eastern ideas and religions, but of the eleventh century, used the Hermetic also proved the most durable of all ancient and Orphic texts to explain the Scriptures. cultures. By Arnold Toynbee’s reckoning, A notable number of medieval scholars the Hellenistic world passed through several including Theoderic of Chartres, Albertus eras including the Ptolemies, the Roman Magnus, Alain of Lille, William of Auvergne, Empire, and the advent of Christianity.1 Roger Bacon, Bernard of Treviso, and Hugh While the Latin West entered the Dark Ages, of Saint Victor also mentioned Hermes Byzantium still basked in the sunny climes Trismegistus or quoted the Asclepius, the of the Greek East and inherited the mantle only Hermetic treatise known to medieval of the eternal city as the “second Rome.” Its Europe.4 Although condemned by church pagan schools in Athens remained loyal to authorities, astrology, alchemy, and ritual the Neoplatonists until the sixth century. magic were all practiced in medieval Rosicrucian As the major regional power across the Europe.5 Meanwhile, scholastic theology Digest No. 1 Balkans, the eastern Mediterranean, and the was increasingly divorced from natural 2012 Near East, Byzantium carried the torch of philosophy. The growing interest in nature Page 36 and the sensible world, together with the Italy. More especially, he recognized the foundation of the universities and secular importance of original Greek sources study, created an intellectual space within for a deeper understanding of Roman which Platonism and the Hermetica could be authors. In 1396, he persuaded the received in the Latin West. Florentine government to appoint Manuel Geopolitical factors in the Mediterranean Chrysoloras, the leading Byzantine classical world and Near East played a vital part in this scholar, to teach at the local university. The process of cultural transfer. As the ascendant appointment created a nucleus of humanists Ottoman Turks succeeded the medieval who were able to pass on their skills to the Arab caliphates as the dominant regional next generation for the study and translation power in the Middle East, they increasingly of ancient Greek literature.7 impinged on the old Byzantine or Eastern Thanks to Salutati’s initiative, there were Roman Empire, which had been the major sufficient numbers of new Italian Hellenists political and cultural force in southeastern to receive and articulate the next wave of Europe and Anatolia since the fall of Rome. Greek thought and letters that arrived in As the Turks pressed on westward across Florence from the Byzantine world. In 1438- the Greek islands and into the Balkans, the 1439, the Council of Ferrara—moved in territory of Byzantium began to dwindle. midsession to Florence—was held to discuss The rich repository of Classical, Greek, and the reunion of the Eastern Church with Arab learning, formerly the powerhouse of Rome. Leading figures in the Byzantine the Byzantine cultural sphere, also began to delegation were Georgios Gemistos Plethon shift westward through the movement of (ca. 1355–1452) and John Bessarion of refugee intellectuals, churchmen, libraries, Trebizond (1395–1472), the young patriarch 6 manuscripts, and other treasures. of Nicaea. The elderly Plethon espoused a This increased contact with the Greek pagan Platonic philosophy that understood world of the declining Byzantine Empire the ancient Greek gods as allegories of divine in the fifteenth century brought with it a powers. Bessarion, who later became a significant philosophical shift in the Latin cardinal, composed a defense of Plethon and West, which in turn produced a revised Platonism against the Aristotelian George of outlook on nature and the heavens and, Trebizond, who had attacked Plethon’s ideas. ultimately, a new vision of man, science, and The ensuing wave of philosophical disputes, medicine. This shift in philosophy favored together with their translation and discussion Plato over Aristotle, whose works had among the humanists of Florence, prepared formed the mainstay of medieval thought the ground for a major efflorescence of and science following their introduction to Platonism in the second half of the century.8 the Arab world in the eleventh and twelfth Wealth and patronage also played centuries. an important part in the Platonist revival at Florence. Cosimo de’ Medici (1389– The Importance of Florence 1464), the leading merchant-prince of the The center of this revival of Platonism Florentine republic, played a vital part in the was Florence, the flourishing Renaissance Platonist revival. Building on the power and city which lay in the Tuscan plain. Coluccio prestige of his father, Giovanni de’ Medici Salutati, chancellor of the republic from (1360–1429), who realized an immense 1375 until his death in 1406, had played fortune through banking and trade, Cosimo a major role in establishing humanism effectively became the absolute ruler of as the new cultural fashion, thereby Florence, while remaining a private citizen boosting Florence’s importance throughout of a republic jealous of its liberty. But Page 37 Cosimo demonstrated royal generosity in his Marsilio Ficino and the Hermetic Revival patronage of the arts and letters. In addition Many Florentine thinkers had been to his magnificent palace in the city, he built attracted by Plethon’s claims that all Greek villas at Careggi, Fiesole, and elsewhere. His philosophies could be harmonized and that a ecclesiastical foundations were numerous, profound knowledge of Plato could become including the basilica at Fiesole, the church the basis of religious unity, the very subject of San Lorenzo in Florence, and a hospice under debate at the Council of Florence. in Jerusalem for pilgrims. In the world of But others were more receptive to ideas of fine art, he was the patron of Donatello, a new spirituality. These seekers found in Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, and Luca della Platonism and the Hermetica an inspiration Robbia, whose paintings and sculptures gave which promised far more than ecclesiastical full expression to the color and vibrancy of concord. Prominent among these idealists 9 the Renaissance world. was the young Florentine humanist called Greek philosophy and learning were Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) who, under especially dear to Cosimo’s heart. During Cosimo’s auspices, became the chief the Council of Florence, he frequently exponent of this revived Platonism and the entertained Plethon and was deeply high priest of the Hermetic secrets within a impressed by his exposition of Platonist new Platonic Academy.11 philosophy. Later, after the final collapse The son of a physician, Marsilio of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks in Ficino first studied philosophy as part of 1453, many learned Greek refugees from his own medical studies. The curriculum Constantinople found refuge in his palace. at the university was still dominated by Thanks to Cosimo’s interest in this Platonist scholasticism, and the young Ficino was stream of ideas from an exotic and waning repelled by the naturalism of Aristotle. Its dry world and his capacity for munificent statement of material facts could not slake his patronage, both Platonism and the thirst for spiritual mystery, and its implicit Hermetica were cultivated and promoted by denial of the immortality of the human soul a gifted circle of young idealists at Florence.10 struck at the very root of his search for divine inspiration. In Plato’s idea of two coexisting worlds—a higher one of Being that is eternal, perfect, and incorruptible, a sharp contrast to the material world—Ficino found precisely what he had sought. The higher world of Ideas or Forms provided archetypal patterns of everything that existed on the lower mundane plane. The human soul originated in the higher world but is trapped in the body in the lower world, and Plato’s writings sometimes describe the return or ascent of the soul to its true, perfect home. The patron found the idealist. By 1456, Marsilio Ficino had begun to study Greek with a view to examining the original sources of Platonic philosophy, and he translated Rosicrucian some texts into Latin. By 1462, Cosimo Digest had given Ficino a villa in Careggi and No. 1 commissioned him to translate a number of 2012 Page 38 Giovanni di Stephano, floor intarsia showing Hermes Trismegistus, Plato, and Marsilio Ficino (1488), west entrance, Siena Cathedral. Greek manuscripts. But the new spirituality translation of Plato. Within a few months, soon recruited Hermeticism alongside Ficino had made a translation that Cosimo Platonism. Just as Ficino was preparing to was able to read.12 translate numerous Platonic dialogues for Until as late as 1610, the works collected his master, new Greek wonders arrived from as the Hermetica were believed to date far the East. In 1460, a monk, Leonardo da back beyond their actual composition in Pistoia, arrived in Florence from Macedonia the first two centuries A.D. Ficino and his with a Greek manuscript. Cosimo employed successors regarded Hermes Trismegistus many agents to collect exotic and rare as a contemporary of Moses, and his manuscripts for him abroad, and this was teachings were seen as a philosophia perennis, one such delivery. However, this particular a perennial philosophy predating yet manuscript contained a copy of the Corpus anticipating Christianity with its roots in Hermeticum. Gleaning something of its pharaonic Egypt. The diffusion of these ideas mystical cosmology, the elderly Cosimo was can readily be illustrated, even in the Church. convinced that the Hermetica represented a Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503) had the very ancient source of divine revelation and Borgia apartments in the Vatican adorned wisdom. In 1463, Cosimo told Ficino to with a fresco full of hermetic symbols and translate the Hermetica before continuing his astrological signs. In the entrance to Siena

Page 39 Cathedral, one can still see, in a work on community with discussions, orations, and the marble floor dating from 1488, the private readings of Plato and other texts figure of Hermes Trismegistus as a bearded with younger disciples. Plato’s birthday was patriarch.13 Renaissance writers also regarded celebrated with a banquet at which each the Hermetic treatises as unique memorials participant made a philosophical speech. of a prisca theologia (ancient theology) in the Public lectures on Plato and Plotinus were sense of the divine revelation granted to the held in a nearby church. Humanists and oldest sages of mankind and handed down other distinguished adherents from Italy and through a great chain of initiates. It was abroad frequented the Academy, and Ficino generally agreed that Hermes Trismegistus kept up an extensive correspondence with was a principal among these ancient sages them.17 together with Moses, Orpheus, Zoroaster, But what was Ficino actually teaching Pythagoras, and others in varying orders of in the Academy? What was so novel and descent. exciting about this newfound spirituality After translating the Hermetica, Ficino based on the new reception of Platonism resumed work on Plato, and Cosimo was and the Hermetica? The answers to these able to read ten of Plato’s dialogues before questions lie in Ficino’s cosmology and the his death in 1464. Ficino completed his role in it that he assigned to the human soul. translation of the collected works of Plato, His model of the universe was derived from the first into any Western language, in 1469, Neoplatonic and medieval sources, essentially and in the same year he wrote his famous a great hierarchy in which each being has commentary on Plato’s Symposium.14 From its assigned place and degree of perfection. 1469 to 1474, he worked on his own chief God was at the top of this hierarchy, which philosophical work, Platonic Theology.15 descended through the orders of angels, In late 1473, he became a Catholic priest, the planets, and the elements to the various and he later held a number of ecclesiastical species of animals, plants, and minerals. benefices, eventually becoming a canon of This cosmology, itself the historical Florence Cathedral. About the same time product of ancient and medieval speculation, he began to collect his letters, which give had long remained essentially static. Within valuable insights into his life and activities the hierarchy, each degree was merely over the next twenty years and include distinct from the next by some gradation of some smaller works of philosophy.16 After attributes. Through his Platonic emphasis on 1484, he devoted himself to his translation the soul as the messenger between the two and commentary of Plotinus, the leading worlds, Ficino introduced a new dynamic Neoplatonist of antiquity, which was into the traditional cosmology. He revived published in 1492. the Neoplatonic doctrine of the world soul to suggest that all the parts and degrees of Although he lived a contemplative life as the hierarchy were linked and held together a scholar and priest, Ficino had a far-reaching by the active forces and affinities of an all- influence on the world of Renaissance pervading spirit. In his scheme, astrology thought. Encouraged by Cosimo, he had was intrinsic to a natural system of mutual already founded the new Platonic Academy influences between the planets and the at his villa in Careggi by 1463. Unlike a human soul.18 formal college, the Academy functioned But prime of place was granted to the chiefly as a loose circle of friends inspired human soul in Ficino’s cosmology. Ficino Rosicrucian by the spiritual ideas of Platonism and the taught that thought had an influence upon Digest No. 1 Hermetica. Accounts of its activities indicate its objects. In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates 2012 Ficino’s desire to found a lay religious identifies love as an active force that holds all Page 40 things together. Ficino attributed the active troubled world. In these lower states of influence of thought and love to the human consciousness, the soul is barely awakened. soul, which could reach out and embrace But once the attention is directed inward, the all things in the universe. This magical soul begins to ascend the spiritual hierarchy equivalence between each human soul and of the cosmos, all the while learning and the world soul thus became the hallmark of interacting with higher spiritual entities. Renaissance Neoplatonism. By placing the Ficino always presented these mystical human soul, like a droplet of divinity, at exercises and ascent experiences as journeys the center of the universe, Ficino initiated of the soul toward higher degrees of truth a fundamental spiritual revolution in man’s and being, culminating in the direct self-regard. Within his dynamic cosmology, knowledge and vision of God. This initiatory the soul thus combined in itself everything, aspect of Ficino’s philosophy certainly helps knew everything, and possessed the powers to explain the intense attraction his ideas of everything in the universe. held for the Academy audiences. His listeners This cosmology was not just a formal felt their souls were being invited to join in intellectual model but rather a map for the a cosmic voyage of spiritual exploration, an travels and ascent of one’s own soul. In his ascent toward the godhead, and a vision of emphasis on the inner, contemplative life, universal truth. Ficino never doubted that Ficino gave a personal and practical slant to his thought was Christian. For him, Jesus his theory of the soul. Through meditation, Christ was the exemplar of human spiritual Ficino believed, the soul exchanged its fulfillment. His Christianity was, of course, commerce with the mundane and material a more esoteric, elite, spiritualized form of things of this outer world for a new contact religion than that proffered to the credulous with the spiritual aspects of the incorporeal masses by the friars. Ficino saw himself as a and intelligible world of higher planes. physician of the soul, guiding his students on Such spiritual knowledge is unobtainable as a path that could free them from the dross long as one’s soul is enmeshed in ordinary of this world and open their spirits to the experience and the noisy concerns of this dazzling radiance of divinity.19

Page 41 Ed n nOTES 10James Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, 1Arnold J. Toynbee, Hellenism: This History of a 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1990), offers a definitive Civilization (London: Oxford University Press, 1959). account of the Platonic revival in Florence and 2A standard work remains authoritative: Byzantium: elsewhere in Italy. An Introduction to East Roman Civilization, edited by 11A concise account of the life and thought of Norman H. Baynes and H. St. L. B. Moss (Oxford: Ficino, together with an anthology of his works and Oxford University Press, 1961); see also Cyril Mango, a research bibliography is provided by Angela Voss, Byzantium: The Empire of the New Rome (London: Marsilio Ficino, Western Esoteric Masters series Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980). (Berkeley, Calif.: North Atlantic Books, 2006). 3Antoine Faivre, The Eternal Hermes: From Greek God See also Michael J. B. Allen, “Marsilo Ficino,” in to Alchemical Magus (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Phanes Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, edited Press, 1995), pp. 18-21. by Wouter Hanegraaff et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 4For the transmission and reception of Hermetic Vol. 1, pp. 360-367; M. J. B. Allen, The Platonism of and esoteric ideas in the Middle Ages, see Brian Marsilio Ficino (Berkeley: University of California P. Copenhaver, Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Press, 1984); M. J. B. Allen and Valery Rees, eds., Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Legacy (Leiden: Brill, 2002). 1992), pp. xlv-xlvii; Antoine Faivre, “Ancient and 12Frances A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Medieval Sources of Modern Esoteric Movements,” in Hermetic Tradition (Chicago: University of Modern Esoteric Spirituality, edited by Antoine Faivre Chicago Press, 1964), pp. 12-17. and Jacob Needleman (London: SCM Press, 1993), 13Antoine Faivre, The Eternal Hermes, p. 40. For the pp. 26-31, 42-46; Antoine Faivre, Access to Western continued vigor of the Hermetic tradition in the Esotericism (Albany: State University of New York Renaissance and early modem period, see Stuckrad, Press, 1994), pp. 53-55. Western Esotericism, p. 56. 5In his study of medieval European magical traditions, 14Marsilio Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s Symposium Kieckhefer makes a sharp distinction between the on Love, translated and edited by Sears Jayne occult sciences (astrology, alchemy, magic) mediated (Woodstock, Conn.: Spring Publications, 1999). by Arabic and Jewish scholarship and native pagan 15Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, translated and practices, Richard Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle edited by Michael J. B. Allen and James Hankins, 6 Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 6Steven Runciman, Byzantine Civilization (London: 2001-2006). Methuen, 1961), pp. 294-298. 16Ficino’s letters are published in English as 7Charles G. Nauert, Humanism and the Culture The Letters of Marsilio Ficino, 6 vols. (London: of Renaissance Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge Shepheard-Walwyn, 1975-1990). See also University Press, 1995), pp. 26-28. For the vital Meditations on the Soul: Selected Letters of role of Coluccio Salutati and other Renaissance Marsilio Ficino (Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions humanists in the revival of Greek learning, see also International, 1997). the older work of Denys Hay, The Italian Renaissance 17Nauert, Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance in Its Historical Background (Cambridge: Cambridge Europe, p. 60; Arthur Field, The Origins of the University Press, 1961). The interaction between Platonic Academy in Florence (Princeton, N.J.: humanism, Aristotelian philosophy, and Renaissance Princeton University Press, 1988); Paul Oskar Platonism and their preponderance in various thinkers Kristeller, Eight Philosophers of the Renaissance is addressed in Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1964), Thought: The Classic, Scholastic, and Humanist Strains pp. 41-42; cf. James Hankins, “The Myth of the (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), and Renaissance Platonic Academy of Florence,” Renaissance Thought II: Papers on Humanism and the Arts (New Quarterly 44 (1991): 429-475. York: Harper & Row, 1965). 18Ficino’s Neoplatonic cosmology and philosophy 8John Monfasani, Byzantine Scholars in Renaissance of the soul and his reception of Hermetism is Italy: Cardinal Bessarion and Other Emigres (Aldershot: summarized in Angela Voss, Marsilio Ficino, pp. Variorum, 1995). 8-21, and in Paul Oskar Kristeller, Eight Philosophers 9Marcel Brion, The Medici: A Great Florentine of the Renaissance, pp. 42-48. A detailed account of Family (London: Ferndale, 1980), provides a richly his reading of the Corpus Hermeticum and Asclepius illustrated volume on the Medici contribution to is found in F. A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Florentine culture and an introductory history of Hermetic Tradition, pp. 20-38. Rosicrucian the dynasty. See also Maurice Rowdon, Lorenzo the 19 Nauert, Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Digest Magnificent (London: Purnell, 1974). Europe, pp. 62-66. No. 1 2012 Page 42 Platonic Love

Elisa Cuttjohn, SRC

ne of the most influential aspects of sex, and sublimation of basic human instincts. Neoplatonism on Western culture was After the other speakers introduce their theories OMarsilio Ficino’s doctrine of Platonic about love, Socrates then shares what he learned love.1 Richard Hooker, Ph.D. writes, on this subject from a woman philosopher — While Renaissance artists, thinkers, and Diotima of Mantinea, who initiated him not other cultural producers only picked only into the mysteries of love when he was up Neoplatonism in part, the doctrine young; she also taught him about Wisdom, of Platonic love diffused quickly all Beauty, and the Good. The “seer” Diotima, throughout the culture. It significantly an Arcadian priestess, represents the “mystical changed the European experience of element in Platonism, and her discourse is a 4 sexual love which, since antiquity, had blend of allegory, philosophy, and myth.” always been closely related to erotics and As we progress in our lives, Diotima told physical attraction. Suddenly writers, Socrates, we grow in our conception of artists, poets, philosophers, and women’s love. First we are stirred by the beauty of communities began discussing sexual the young body. Then we begin to see love in terms of spiritual bonds, as the beauty in all bodies. At this point we reflecting the relationship between the look to the beauty of the soul. As man individuals and God. 2 [a person] is able to identify the beauty Continuing to today, the concept of in all souls, he soon appreciates the Platonic love is widely understood as: beauty in the laws, and the structure of all things. Lastly we discover the beauty 1. love of the Idea of beauty, seen as of the forms, the divine ideas. Love is terminating an evolution from the important for it starts and continues us desire for an individual and the love on our path.5 of physical beauty to the love and James Lesher, Ph.D., writes that the story contemplation of spiritual or ideal that Diotima told concerned: beauty. nothing less than the means by which 2. an intimate companionship or a mortal being can achieve union with relationship, especially between a perfect, eternal, and divine being... two persons of the opposite gender, For many later writers, especially those that is characterized by the absence engaged in defining Christian doctrine of sexual involvement; a spiritual during its formative period, Socrates’ 3 affection. speech provided a framework for The origin of the concept of Platonic love understanding a truth of the utmost comes from Plato’s Symposium, a dialogue set importance—that love is not simply an in an all-night banquet where the partygoers aspect of human life but the means by decide to discuss the concept of Love (Eros). which mortal beings can ascend from The conversation produces a series of reflections the physical realm to become united by the all-male participants on gender roles, with God.6 Page 43 Professor Lesher continues: Love is also a philosopher: or lover of What seems to be the main conclusion is wisdom, and being a lover of wisdom a view that Plato will consider important is in a mean between the wise and the enough to return to again and again in ignorant. And of this too his birth is the other dialogues: the best and most fully cause; for his [Eros’s] father is wealthy appropriate object of human desire is and wise, and his mother poor and philosophia, i.e. a life devoted to the foolish. Such, my dear Socrates, is the contemplation of a set of eternal, perfect, nature of the spirit Love. The error in and unchanging realities.7 your conception of him was very natural, and as I imagine from what you say, has Below are some excerpts from Socrates’ arisen out of a confusion of love and the tale of Love from Symposium. Plato does not beloved, which made you think that love mention Diotima again. was all beautiful. For the beloved is the truly beautiful, and delicate, and perfect, and blessed; but the principle of love is of another nature, and is such as I have And now, taking my leave of you, I described.” would rehearse a tale of love which I I said, “O thou stranger woman, thou heard from Diotima of Mantinea, a sayest well; but, assuming Love to be woman wise in this and in many other such as you say, what is the use of him kinds of knowledge, who in the days to humans?” “That, Socrates,” she of old, when the Athenians offered replied, “I will attempt to unfold: of his sacrifice before the coming of the plague, nature and birth I have already spoken; delayed the disease ten years. She was my and you acknowledge that love is of the instructress in the art of love, and I shall beautiful. But someone will say: Of the repeat to you what she said to me... beautiful in what, Socrates and Diotima? After explaining to Socrates that Eros (Love) is a – or rather let me put the question more great spirit, an intermediate between the divine dearly, and ask: When a person loves and the mortal, Diotima says: the beautiful, what does he desire?” I “The truth of the matter is this: No answered her “That the beautiful may be deity is a philosopher or seeker after his.” “Still,” she said, “the answer suggests wisdom, for he is wise already; nor a further question: What is given by the does any human who is wise seek after possession of beauty?” wisdom. Neither do the ignorant seek “To what you have asked,” I replied, “I after Wisdom. For herein is the evil of have no answer ready.” “Then,” she said, ignorance, that he who is neither good “Let me put the word good in the place nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with of the beautiful, and repeat the question himself: he has no desire for that of once more: If he who loves good, what is which he feels no want.” it then that he loves? “The possession of “But who then, Diotima,” I said, “are the good,” I said. “And what does he gain the lovers of wisdom, if they are neither who possesses the good?” “Happiness,” the wise nor the foolish?” “A child may I replied; “there is less difficulty in answer that question,” she replied; “they answering that question.” “Yes,” she are those who are in a mean between said, “the happy are made happy by the Rosicrucian the two; Love [Eros] is one of them. For acquisition of good things. Nor is there Digest wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and any need to ask why a person desires No. 1 Love is of the beautiful; and therefore happiness; the answer is already final.” 2012 Page 44 “You are right.” I said. “And is this wish and this desire common to all? and do all people always desire their own good, or only some people? – what say you?” “All people,” I replied; “the desire is common to all.” “Why, then,” she rejoined, “are not all people, Socrates, said to love, but only some of them? whereas you say that all people are always loving the same things.” “I myself wonder,” I said, – “why this is.” “There is nothing to wonder at,” she replied; “the reason is that one part of love is separated off and receives the name of the whole, but the other parts have other names.” Diotima and Socrates continue to discuss love, the good, and beauty. Diotima then says: “Marvel not then at the love which all humans have of their offspring; for that universal love and interest is for the sake of immortality.” I was astonished at her words, and Socrates (469 – 399 BCE). said: “Is this really true, O thou wise Diotima?” And she answered with all the of the glorious fame of immortal virtue; authority of an accomplished sophist: for they desire the immortal.” “Of that, Socrates, you may be assured; Diotima then offers that for most people, even think only of the ambition of humans, the love of offspring serves mostly to preserve a and you will wonder at the senselessness person’s memory, giving them the blessedness of their ways, unless you consider and immortality which they desire in the how they are stirred by the love of an future. immortality of fame. They are ready to “Who, when he thinks of Homer and run all risks greater far than they would Hesiod and other great poets, would not have for their children, and to spend rather have their children than ordinary money and undergo any sort of toil, and human ones? Who would not emulate even to die, for the sake of leaving behind them in the creation of children such them a name which shall be eternal. Do as theirs, which have preserved their you imagine that Alcestis would have memory and given them everlasting died to save Admetus, or Achilles to glory? Or who would not have such avenge Patroclus, or your own Codrus children as Lycurgus left behind him to in order to preserve the kingdom for be the saviors, not only of Lacedaemon, his sons, if they had not imagined that but of Hellas, as one may say? There is the memory of their virtues, which still Solon, too, who is the revered father of survives among us, would be immortal? Athenian laws; and many others there “Nay,” she said, “I am persuaded that are in many other places, both among all humans do all things, and the better hellenes and barbarians, who have given they are the more they do them, in hope to the world many noble works, and Page 45 have been the parents of virtue of every mean and narrow-minded, but drawing kind; and many temples have been towards and contemplating the vast sea raised in their honor for the sake of of beauty, he will create many fair and children such as theirs; which were never noble thoughts and notions in boundless raised in honor of any one, for the sake love of wisdom; until on that shore of his mortal children. he grows and waxes strong, and at last “These are the lesser mysteries of love, the vision is revealed to him of a single into which even you, Socrates, may science, which is the science of beauty enter; to the greater and more hidden everywhere. To this I will proceed; please ones which are the crown of these, and to give me your very best attention: to which, if you pursue them in a right “He who has been instructed thus spirit, they will lead, I know not whether far in the things of love, and who has you will be able to attain. But I will do learned to see the beautiful in due order my utmost to inform you, and do you and succession, when he comes toward follow if you can. For he who would the end will suddenly perceive a nature proceed aright in this matter should of wondrous beauty (and this, Socrates, begin in youth to visit beautiful forms; is the final cause of all our former toils) and first, if he be guided by his instructor – a nature which in the first place is aright, to love one such form only – out everlasting, not growing and decaying, of that he should create fair thoughts; or waxing and waning; secondly, not and soon he will of himself perceive that fair in one point of view and foul in the beauty of one form is akin to the another, or at one time or in one relation beauty of another; and then if beauty or at one place fair, at another time or in of form in general is his pursuit, how another relation or at another place foul, foolish would he be not to recognize that as if fair to some and foul to others, or the beauty in every form is and the same! in the likeness of a face or hands or any And when he perceives this he will abate other part of the bodily frame, or in any his violent love of the one, which he will form of speech or knowledge, or existing despise and deem a small thing, and will in any other being, as for example, in become a lover of all beautiful forms; in an animal, or in heaven or in earth, or the next stage he will consider that the in any other place; but beauty absolute, beauty of the mind is more honorable separate, simple, and everlasting, which than the beauty of the outward form. without diminution and without “So that if a virtuous soul have but a increase, or any change, is imparted to little comeliness, he will be content to the ever-growing and perishing beauties love and tend him, and will search out of all other things. and bring to the birth thoughts which “He who from these ascending under may improve the young, until he is the influence of true love, begins to compelled to contemplate and see the perceive that beauty, is not far from beauty of institutions and laws, and to the end. And the true order of going, understand that the beauty of them all is or being led by another, to the things of one family, and that personal beauty of love, is to begin from the beauties of is a trifle; and after laws and institutions earth and mount upwards for the sake he will go on to the sciences, that he may of that other beauty, using these as steps Rosicrucian see their beauty, being not like a servant only, and from one going on to two, Digest in love with the beauty of one youth and from two to all fair forms, and from No. 1 or person or institution, himself a slave fair forms to fair practices, and from 2012 Page 46 fair practices to fair notions, until from nourishing true virtue to become the fair notions he arrives at the notion of friend of the Divine and be immortal, absolute beauty, and at last knows what if mortal human may. Would that be an the essence of beauty is. ignoble life?” “This, my dear Socrates,” said the ENDNOTES stranger of Mantinea, “is that life above 1Richard Hooker, “Renaissance Neo-Platonism,” all others which people should live, in http://hermetic.com/texts/neoplatonism.html. the contemplation of beauty absolute...” 2Ibid. 3Random House Dictionary at Dictionary.com, “...what if humans had eyes to see “Platonic love,” (New York: Random House, the true beauty—the divine beauty, I 2012), http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ mean, pure and dear and unalloyed, not platonic+love. clogged with the pollutions of mortality 4R.G. Bury, The Symposium of Plato, http://www. and all the colors and vanities of human perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atex t%3A1999.04.0090%3Atext%3Dintro%3Asectio life—thither looking, and holding n%3D4. converse with the true beauty simple 5Chris Marvin, “Diotima of Mantinea,” The Win- and divine? Remember how in that dow, Philosophy on the Internet, http://www. communion only, beholding beauty with trincoll.edu/depts/phil/philo/phils/diotima.html. 6 the eye of the mind, he will be enabled James Lesher, “Later Views of the Socrates of Plato’s Symposium,” from M. Trapp, ed., Socrates to bring forth, not images of beauty, but in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century, (Ashgate: realities (for he has hold not of an image Centre for Hellenic Studies, 2007), p. 61. but of a reality), and bringing forth and 7Ibid.

Diotima of Mantinea.

Page 47 The School of Athens Raphael

he School of Athens was painted by the Segnatura (the highest court of the Holy See) the Italian Renaissance painter, Raffaelo within the Vatican. The frescoes in this room mark TSanzio da Urbino (1483–1520), better the beginning of the high Renaissance.1 Raphael known simply as Raphael, when he was twenty- is often associated with Renaissance Neoplatonism seven years old. Commissioned for Pope Julius II because of his skillful depictions of the ideal. (1503–1513), this large fresco (5.77 x 8.14 meters, Raphael died on his thirty-seventh birthday in 16.5 x 25 feet) can still be viewed in the Room of 1520.

The School of Athens by Raphael. A legend for this painting, identifying the various figures, has never been found. We suggest the possibilities on the following page.

Rosicrucian Digest No. 1 1Vatican Museums, “Room of the Segnatura,” http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/SDR/SDR_03_SalaSegn.html. 2012 Page 48 Socrates Aristotle (holding Ethics)

Plato (pointing upwards with Timaeus in his hand)

Hypatia Parmenides Plotinus

Heraclitus (a portrait of the artist Michelangelo) Ptolemy Zoroaster (holding the earthly sphere) (holding the heavenly sphere)

Raphael (Self Portrait) Pythagoras Euclid (with Sacred Tetraktys) (teaching geometry to his pupils) Page 49 Nature: A Neoplatonic Text

Ralph Waldo Emerson

alph Waldo Emerson, one of the Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Bronson most revered figures in the history Alcott, Margaret Fuller, as well as millions of Rof American letters, was born in other readers. 1803, in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1836, Below is an excerpt from “Nature.” This Emerson co-founded the Transcendental Club text is grounded in Platonism, especially and published his book-length essay “Nature,” Neoplatonism, as embodied in the writings which is often considered a major milestone in of the Cambridge Neoplatonists.1 Emerson the American Transcendentalist movement. also honored Plato with two essays in his This work would deeply influence Thomas book Representative Men: “Plato; or the Carlyle, Friedrich Nietzsche, Henry David Philosopher” and “Plato: New Readings.”

Nature2 by Ralph Waldo Emerson

A subtle chain of countless rings The next unto the farthest brings; The eye reads omens where it goes, And speaks all languages the rose; And, striving to be man, the worm Mounts through all the spires of form.

Introduction Our age is retrospective. It builds nature, why should we grope among the the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes dry bones of the past, or put the living biographies, histories, and criticism. The generation into masquerade out of its foregoing generations beheld God and faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day nature face to face; we, through their also. There is more wool and flax in the eyes. Why should not we also enjoy fields. There are new lands, new men, an original relation to the universe? new thoughts. Let us demand our own Why should not we have a poetry works and laws and worship. and philosophy of insight and not of Undoubtedly we have no questions to tradition, and a religion by revelation ask which are unanswerable. We must to us, and not the history of theirs? trust the perfection of the creation so Embosomed for a season in nature, far, as to believe that whatever curiosity Rosicrucian whose floods of life stream around and the order of things has awakened in our Digest through us, and invite us by the powers minds, the order of things can satisfy. No. 1 they supply, to action proportioned to Every man's condition is a solution 2012 Page 50 Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the NOT ME, that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, NATURE. In enumerating the values of nature and casting up their sum, I shall use the word in both senses; —in its common and in its philosophical import. In inquiries so general as our present one, the inaccuracy is not material; no confusion of thought will occur. Nature, in the common sense, refers to essences unchanged by man; space, the air, the river, the leaf. Art is applied to the mixture of his will with the same things, as in a house, a canal, a statue, a picture. But his operations In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I taken together are so insignificant, a feel that nothing can befall me in life,—no disgrace, little chipping, baking, patching, and no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. washing, that in an impression so grand as that of the world on the human mind, in hieroglyphic to those inquiries he they do not vary the result. would put. He acts it as life, before he apprehends it as truth. In like manner, Chapter I NATURE nature is already, in its forms and To go into solitude, a man needs to tendencies, describing its own design. retire as much from his chamber as from Let us interrogate the great apparition, society. I am not solitary whilst I read that shines so peacefully around us. Let and write, though nobody is with me. us inquire, to what end is nature? But if a man would be alone, let him All science has one aim, namely, to look at the stars. The rays that come find a theory of nature. We have theories from those heavenly worlds, will separate of races and of functions, but scarcely yet between him and what he touches. a remote approach to an idea of creation. One might think the atmosphere was We are now so far from the road to made transparent with this design, to truth, that religious teachers dispute and give man, in the heavenly bodies, the hate each other, and speculative men are perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen esteemed unsound and frivolous. But in the streets of cities, how great they to a sound judgment, the most abstract are! If the stars should appear one night truth is the most practical. Whenever in a thousand years, how would men a true theory appears, it will be its own believe and adore; and preserve for many evidence. Its test is, that it will explain generations the remembrance of the all phenomena. Now many are thought city of God which had been shown! But not only unexplained but inexplicable; as every night come out these envoys of language, sleep, madness, dreams, beasts, beauty, and light the universe with their sex. admonishing smile. Page 51 The stars awaken a certain reverence, the heart of the child. The lover of nature because though always present, they are is he whose inward and outward senses inaccessible; but all natural objects make are still truly adjusted to each other; who a kindred impression, when the mind has retained the spirit of infancy even is open to their influence. Nature never into the era of manhood. His intercourse wears a mean appearance. Neither does with heaven and earth, becomes part of the wisest man extort her secret, and his daily food. In the presence of nature, lose his curiosity by finding out all her a wild delight runs through the man, perfection. Nature never became a toy in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, — to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, he is my creature, and maugre all his the mountains, reflected the wisdom impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with of his best hour, as much as they had me. Not the sun or the summer alone, delighted the simplicity of his childhood. but every hour and season yields its When we speak tribute of delight; for of nature in this every hour and change manner, we have a Standing on the bare corresponds to and distinct but most authorizes a different poetical sense in the ground,—my head state of the mind, from mind. We mean bathed by the blithe breathless noon to the integrity of grimmest midnight. impression made air, and uplifted into Nature is a setting that fits by manifold natural infinite space,—all equally well a comic or a objects. It is this mourning piece. In good which distinguishes mean egotism vanishes. health, the air is a cordial the stick of timber I become a transparent of incredible virtue. of the wood-cutter, Crossing a bare common, from the tree of the eye-ball; I am nothing; in snow puddles, at poet. The charming I see all; the currents twilight, under a clouded landscape which I sky, without having in my saw this morning, is of the Universal Being thoughts any occurrence indubitably made up circulate through me; I of special good fortune, of some twenty or I have enjoyed a perfect thirty farms. Miller am part or particle of exhilaration. I am glad to owns this field, Locke God. the brink of fear. In the that, and Manning woods too, a man casts t h e w o o d l a n d off his years, as the snake beyond. But none of them owns the his slough, and at what period soever of landscape. There is a property in the life, is always a child. In the woods, is horizon which no man has but he whose perpetual youth. Within these plantations eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, poet. This is the best part of these men's a perennial festival is dressed, and the farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds guest sees not how he should tire of give no title. them in a thousand years. In the woods, To speak truly, few adult persons can we return to reason and faith. There see nature. Most persons do not see the I feel that nothing can befall me in life, Rosicrucian sun. At least they have a very superficial —no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me Digest No. 1 seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. 2012 of the man, but shines into the eye and Standing on the bare ground, —my head Page 52 bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted storm, is new to me and old. It takes me into infinite space, —all mean egotism by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its vanishes. I become a transparent eye- effect is like that of a higher thought or ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents a better emotion coming over me, when of the Universal Being circulate through I deemed I was thinking justly or doing me; I am part or particle of God. The right. name of the nearest friend sounds then Yet it is certain that the power to foreign and accidental: to be brothers, produce this delight, does not reside in to be acquaintances, —master or nature, but in man, or in a harmony of servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. both. It is necessary to use these pleasures I am the lover of uncontained and with great temperance. For, nature is not immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I always tricked in holiday attire, but the find something more dear and connate same scene which yesterday breathed than in streets or villages. In the tranquil perfume and glittered as for the frolic landscape, and especially in the distant of the nymphs, is overspread with line of the horizon, man beholds melancholy today. Nature always wears somewhat as beautiful as his own nature. the colors of the spirit. To a man laboring The greatest delight which the fields under calamity, the heat of his own fire and woods minister, is the suggestion hath sadness in it. Then, there is a kind of an occult relation between man of contempt of the landscape felt by him and the vegetable. I am not alone and who has just lost by death a dear friend. unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I The sky is less grand as it shuts down over to them. The waving of the boughs in the less worth in the population.

ENDNOTES 1Bryan Hileman, “Transcendental Forerunners,” http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/roots/ rootsintro.html. 2Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, (Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1836). Page 53 Beauty in Art or the Art of Beauty

Christian Bernard, FRC

n this article, Christian Bernard, is not limited to how things look. There Imperator of the Rosicrucian Order, is also inner beauty, that of the soul, which IAMORC, invites us to develop our transcends the body and shines through it. perception of the transcendental nature of The transcendental nature of beauty can beauty, which can be a powerful tool to carry us be compared to the impulse that carries us closer to Divine Wisdom. towards everything that is akin to the Good, as was magnificently expressed by the great Neoplatonist Plotinus. This inspired mystic Beauty is closely linked to the arts had a fondness for revealing beauty by and, as a result, to the areas the arts are associating it with what he referred to as the connected with. Both emotion and reason “inner eye,” which he said has to open when must be our guides when we contemplate we perceive what is beautiful in all things and the artistic works that are accessible to us, all beings. This is what he stated: so that we only choose those that elevate The soul, therefore, must be us in consciousness. Beauty is in every accustomed first of all to contemplate manifestation, to varying degrees. Music, beautiful pursuits, and next beautiful painting, sculpture, dance, as well as nature works... After this, contemplate the and the things humankind does, can kindle souls of those who are the authors of the feeling of beauty. And we should become such beautiful actions. How, then, may more attached to the perception of beauty you behold the beauty of a virtuous than to the arts themselves. Indeed, while soul? Withdraw into yourself and look; the aim of aesthetics is to engender the and if you do not yet behold yourself feeling of beauty, its etymological meaning as beautiful, do as does the maker of a is “perception,” the translation of the Greek statue which is to be beautiful; for this word aisthetikos. This therefore means that person cuts away, shaves down, smooths, beauty is perceived and felt before being an and cleans it, until the sculptor has object of contemplation. made manifest in the statue the beauty Plato may be considered the founder of of the face which he or she portrays. So the science of beauty. He thought that there with yourself. Cut away that which is exists beyond manifested things an absolute, superfluous, straighten that which is spiritual “beauty,” which administers beauty crooked, purify that which is obscure: to all that exists on the earthly plane. He also labor to make all bright, and never said that the more pure our thoughts are, the cease to fashion your statue until there better we perceive and feel universal beauty, shall shine out upon you the deity-like which according to him was an emanation splendor of virtue... For one who beholds of the Divine. Of course, beauty does not must be akin to that which one beholds, Rosicrucian Digest only express itself in the visible world, and and must, before one comes to this No. 1 2012 Page 54 vision, be transformed into its likeness. here below through nature and humanity’s Never could the eye have looked upon works—should lead us to become aware of the Sun had it not become Sun-like, and Divine Beauty. This is to say that its purpose never can the soul see Beauty unless she is to raise us in consciousness towards has become beautiful. the Divine. This is because our soul is an The perception of beauty follows a emanation of the Universal Soul, and it feels progression. Beauty has to appeal to the and expresses that which is most divine in senses, and then to the mind and the itself by means of that which is beautiful. emotions, before reaching the soul itself. While it is important to be receptive There is an artist behind every work of to beauty and to avail ourselves of it on art, but when all planes, it is considered perfect, equally important it transcends the to manifest it— personality of meaning create it, its creator, and apart from within expresses an aspect the arts. Therefore of the Divine. in each of our God, in the sense thoughts, words, of Universal and actions, we Intelligence or should endeavor to Consciousness, is express beauty, and therefore present thus demonstrate in the pure and genuine feeling of beauty, for the harmonic relationship that connects us beauty is one of God’s attributes. Speaking of to the Divine, as we conceive and feel the beauty in art, Augustine said: Divine to be. The more spiritually evolved a person is, the more aware they are of beauty, Beauty is the inevitable, albeit half- and the more they become able to create it erased, imprint of the Divine Hand. in and around themselves, thus generating a For a work of art to be truly beautiful, trace of the Divine on the earthly plane, for it must be part of those ratios which the delight of humankind. bring this world into being. In all the arts, proportion and harmony are what In conclusion, we should cultivate our please. When there is harmony, all is awareness of the beauty of things, not for the beautiful. This harmony yearns for things themselves, but for the harmony that equality and unity. Beauty always takes radiates from them, which through them is the form of unity. manifesting Divine Beauty. To be aware of what is beautiful is to open a window onto While Divine Beauty can be directly the Divine World and draw closer to Divine perceived and received through inspiration, Wisdom; it is to experience Universal Love, it is only when the artist gives it material of which it is said is the life and light of all form that it becomes beauty for the things in the universe. Thus Rumi was ordinary person. It is then a work of art, the moved to say: “That which the Divine said quintessence and archetype of which arise in to the rose thereby making its beauty unfold, the higher planes of Creation. This means the Divine said to my heart and caused it to to say that beauty—such as it manifests be a hundred times more beautiful.”

Page 55 Rosicrucian Ontology

The Divine is the Universal Intelligence that thought, manifested, and animated all Creation according to unchanging perfect laws.

All of Creation is permeated by a Universal Soul that evolves toward the perfection of its own nature.

Life is the vehicle for cosmic evolution, such as it manifests in the universe and on Earth.

Matter owes its existence to a vibratory energy that is propagated throughout the entire universe and which permeates each atom.

Time and space are states of consciousness and do not have any material reality independent from humans.

The human being is a double being in his or her nature and triple in her or his manifestation.

The soul incarnates in the body of a child at the first inhalation, making the child a living and conscious being.

Rosicrucian Digest No. 1 2012 Page 56 Our destiny is determined by the manner in which we apply our free will and by the karma resulting from this.

Death occurs with the last breath and results in the final separation between the body and the soul.

The spiritual evolution of humans is ruled by reincarnation, and its ultimate purpose is to reach Perfection.

There is a supra-human kingdom, formed by all the disincarnated souls populating the invisible world.

After completing its spiritual evolution, the soul of each human being reintegrates with the Universal Soul in all purity and lives in the Divine Immanence in full consciousness.

With its twelve major laws, this text summarizes the Rosicrucian Ontology, meaning the ideas Rosicrucians have about Creation in general and humans in particular. We must nevertheless indicate that these laws are not dogmatic.

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