Doc.: 4142_Rays_Huijs à Datum: 18-07-12 à Tijd: 22:44:45 à Pad: D:/IJZEREN VOOR GNOSIS ^ RAYS OF LIGHT PAST AND PRESENT Doc.: 4142_Rays_Huijs à Datum: 18-07-12 à Tijd: 22:44:45 à Pad: D:/IJZEREN VOOR Doc.: 4142_Rays_Huijs à Datum: 18-07-12 à Tijd: 22:44:45 à Pad: D:/IJZEREN VOOR Gnosis RAYS OF LIGHT PAST AND PR ESENT Peter f.w. Huijs Edited by Herbert Horn 1st Printing 2012 Rozekruis Pers ^ Haarlem Doc.: 4142_Rays_Huijs à Datum: 18-07-12 à Tijd: 22:44:46 à Pad: D:/IJZEREN VOOR Translated by a group of friends ^ Jan van den Berg, David Cole, Mar- ietta Millet, Christina Nihill, Anna Rekers, Hannie Seiler, Joke van de Snepscheut ^ from the Dutch Gnosis ^ Stromen van Licht in Europa, the first printing of whichwas published in 2001with the title: Als een bovenaardse rivier ^ de verborgen stuw van de Gnosis in Europa. Edited by Herbert Horn. Frontispiece: An age-old wrought-iron depiction of the Rosycross, found along a mountain trail near Chiavenna, Northern Italy. The Scripture quotations contained herein (except where noted) are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible copyright ß 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the NationalCouncilof the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. All rights reserved. Where noted, Scripture quotations are from Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright ß 1946,1952, and 1971NationalCouncilof the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights re- served. ß 2012 Rozekruis Pers ^ Haarlem isbn 978-90-6732-418-2 www.rozekruispers.com Doc.: 4142_Rays_Huijs à Datum: 18-07-12 à Tijd: 22:44:46 à Pad: D:/IJZEREN VOOR Ta b l e o f Co n t e n t s Introduction 7 Pa rt i ^ Pr eh i sto ry 9 1 The UniversalBrotherhood 11 2 Egypt 17 3 The Druids 25 Hallowed Woods 4 The Essenes 39 Pa rt i i ^ Ti m e s o f Ch a n ge 49 5 What is Gnosis? 51 6 HermesTrismegistus 58 Hermes theThrice Great 7 Mani of Ctesiphon 71 Hymn of Mani 81 8 The Brotherhood of the Bogomils 83 9 A Church of Pure Love 97 Partiii^A NewFundament 111 10 The Song of the ‘Friends of God’ 113 Meister Eckhart and JohannesTauler 11 Marsilio Ficino 127 An Academy for the Soul 12 Theophrastus Paracelsus, the First Rosicrucian 145 Hermes is the Source 13 Jakob Bo« hme 165 14 Jakob Bo« hme’s Understanding of the Seven Spirits 195 15 JohannValentin Andreae 207 A New Brotherhood 16 Robert Fludd 229 ‘I doe yet fly« on mine owne wings’ 17 Jan Amos Komensky¤ ^ John Amos Comenius 261 Having Assumed theTorch and Kept It Burning 18 Karlvon Eckartshausen 277 Doc.: 4142_Rays_Huijs à Datum: 18-07-12 à Tijd: 22:44:46 à Pad: D:/IJZEREN VOOR Part iv ^ The Liberation of the Being of Light 295 19 Antonin Gadal 297 20 Z.W. Leene, Jan van Rijckenborgh, and Catharose de Petri 321 Literature for the IndividualChapters 344 Doc.: 4142_Rays_Huijs à Datum: 18-07-12 à Tijd: 22:44:46 à Pad: D:/IJZEREN VOOR Introduction Without a reasonable level of culture, people cannot live, socialise, and communicate on the same level with others. Culture is necessary. However, culture alone leads nowhere. History teaches us that even- tually it always turns into its opposite. Culture is therefore to be re- garded as a basis, a starting point from which something else must de- velop. That something else is whatthis book is about. It aims to open a window on what has currently come to be termed, after religion and science, ‘the third stream in Europe’,the Gnosis. It aims to make visi- ble the extent of the efforts that have been made to bring Europe to a new spring in which people can follow their spiritual purpose guided by their own inner compass. A landscape full of life unfolds, but atthe same time, it is marked with the scars of devastation One can find the residue of powerfulideas, ruins of once majestic strongholds of the spirit, and acres of overgrown wilderness where once were gardens full of poetic beauty and in which an occasional rose still blooms amidst the tangle of thorns and weeds, the gardeners having been driven out with a ruthless hand. If we dig in this land- scape, we can sometimes happen upon a shimmering pearl, or a root that can be replanted, and sometimes we find a mirror that when held aloft reflects the entire universe. When we pause and look at how much has been halted, denied, buried, or swept away in the course of centuries, the realisation of what might have been takes the breath away. And yet, the hidden life of the spirit pulses continuously and ur- gently just beneath the surface of the history of Europe, in the same way that the life force waiting to burst out of the seeds becomes almost tangible in a ploughed field: One knows that at a certain moment, the field will bear a rich harvest. 7 Doc.: 4142_Rays_Huijs à Datum: 18-07-12 à Tijd: 22:44:46 à Pad: D:/IJZEREN VOOR The historyand events that are outlined in this book tell of the libera- tion of the spirit, the spiritual, the other in the human being. It is a dramatic history full of majestic highlights. Through the stories of the many pioneers who have carried out the work of the liberation of the Soul, the task of becoming spiritually conscious, the reader be- comes acquainted with western Gnostic esoteric thinking. The Dutch author Teun de Vries in his book, Heretics, Fourteen Centuries of Heresy, Popular Movements, and Inquisition (1982), writes about close to a hundred significant figures and many more less well-known people. They are indeed innumerable who sail the hidden river over the earth, and this book endeavours to cast a more expansive light on some of them who mark a new development of con- sciousness. The first part of the book deals with the conditions that were of sig- nificance before our calendar begins, sometimes referred to as the time of the cosmic-mythic consciousness, when people were moti- vated and directed by their beliefs in the stars and the myths that were formulated around them. The second part recounts how in the first centuries after Christ the Gnostic idea of the two nature orders received its form and content. It deals with the people who experi- enced and explored this idea in groups, in churches and schools, dur- ing the process of their development from group consciousness to in- dividualconsciousness. In the third part, we look at the individuals who propagated the Gnostic idea in their times. They lived accord- ingly and tried to make others receptive to the call, as the driving force of the spirit has sometimes been referred to since the appearance of the classical Rosicrucians. The fourth part deals finally with the birth of the modern Gnostic consciousness and shows how the modern Gnosis came into being in the InternationalSchoolof the GoldenRosycross. Before 1940, Z. W. Leene and, in the second half of the twentieth century,Jan van Rijck- enborgh and Catharose de Petri, gave form to the new world-wide work of the Brotherhood of the Rosycross. In our view,this is the cul- mination of the endeavour in theWest of all ’the workers of the hidden Spirit’who travelled upstream in the current of this universal river to- wards the source. This book is dedicated to all who protect and continue this work. 8 Doc.: 4142_Rays_Huijs à Datum: 18-07-12 à Tijd: 22:44:46 à Pad: D:/IJZEREN VOOR Pa rt i Prehistory Doc.: 4142_Rays_Huijs à Datum: 18-07-12 à Tijd: 22:44:46 à Pad: D:/IJZEREN VOOR Symbolic representation of the Universal Brotherhood. Painting by Johfra, 1962, private collection. 10 Doc.: 4142_Rays_Huijs à Datum: 18-07-12 à Tijd: 22:44:46 à Pad: D:/IJZEREN VOOR chapter 1 The Universal Brotherhood In order to gain an understanding of the Gnostic and liberating ele- ments in some of the past world religions, we shall often in this book refer to ’the Brotherhood’.In our view,humanity’s existence through- out the ages has been powerfully influenced by the Brotherhood, espe- cially during crucial phases in its development. This UniversalBrotherhood represents the pure, inviolate part of our planet ^ a concept that is unknown to most people. Its represen- tatives are born again and again among humanity in order to work for the reinstatement of the unity that has been violated in every human being. The Brotherhood is a higher unity of free human beings, both male and female, that maintains a uninterrupted inspiring link with the life of the spirit. It does not link itself with any individual person but supports every effort towards true liberation with its mighty soul potential, which surrounds such work as a protecting field. An individualgenerallylives in the visibleworldfor barelya century,if he is lucky. A human life is a series of incidents; it moves from event to event. In that multihued kaleidoscope of events, it is often difficult to discern a development that lifts the person above the level of an ’in- cident’. During his century,he uses up the energy given to him at the outset. He uses the combustible materials, the air, and the fruits of the earth and then disappears again. On the whole, a human being does not seem to add or contribute anything to improve the world or even to maintain it.