Tikkun Olam

Emperor Friedrich III, possibly Vladislaus II of Hungary (1456 – 1516)—the great-grandson of Sigismund of Luxembourg—and members of the infamous Bathory family, continued decorating aristocrats with the Order the Dragon.[1] Friedrich III’s son, Emperor Maximilian I, became Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece after he married Mary of Burgundy, the granddaughter of the founder, Philip the Good. In the same year, as the hostilities of the Italian Wars with France were in preparation, Maximilian I married Bianca Maria Sforza, daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, with the intercession of his brother, Leonardo da Vinci’s chief sponsor, Ludovico Sforza.[2] Several years later, in order to reduce the growing pressures on the Empire brought about by treaties between the rulers of France, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, and Russia, as well as to secure Bohemia and Hungary for the Habsburgs, Maximilian met with the Jagiellonian kings, the brothers Vladislaus II and Sigismund I of Poland at the First Congress of Vienna in 1515. They arranged for Maximilian I’s granddaughter Mary of Austria to marry Vladislaus II’s son, Louis II of Hungary, and for his daughter Anna Jagellonica to marry Maximilian I’s grandson, Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor (1503 – 1564). Both Ferdinand I and Mary were the children of Maximilian’s son Philip the Handsome and Joanna of Castile, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, the Catholic Monarchs.[3] These marriages brought Habsburg kingship over Hungary and Bohemia in 1526.

According to Frances Yates in The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, the Rosicrucian movement was the result of the visit of the English sorcerer John Dee (1527 – 1608 or 1609) to Prague in Bohemia, under Ferdinand I’s grandson, Emperor Rudolf II (1552 – 1612), Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece and a knight of the Order of the Garter. The occult underground had remained invisible until they announced themselves to the world as the Order of the Rosy Cross, also known as the Rosicrucians. The name recalls the Templar knights, as well as the Holy Vehm tribunal, to which belonged Emperor Sigismund, and whose symbol was a red cross on a white background.[4] The words “Vehm” or “Fehm,” according to Gottfried Leibniz, the famous scientist and Rosicrucian, were derived from fama, as the law founded on common fame.[5] In contemporary documents, the members of the Vehm were frequently referred to under the name of Rose­-Croix.[6]

As suggested by Yates, Rosicrucianism was based on the teachings of Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534 – 1572), in what came to be known as the New Kabbalah.[7] As detailed by Gershom Scholem, the Expulsion from Spain created a longing among Marranos for messianic expectations, fueling millenarian aspirations which set the stage for the onset of Luria’s ideas. These ideas, which shaped the subversive activities of the crypto-Jews, found expression in the Kabbalah. As explained by Yvonne Petry, “Because they often found themselves caught between two faiths, Kabbalah served as a useful bridge between Judaism and Christianity.” [8] In fact, points out Petry, the Kabbalah experienced a revival in the sixteenth century among the émigrés from Spain and Portugal. The most important center of Kabbalistic study was Safed in Ottoman Palestine, where many Spanish Jews and Marranos had settled, where they were welcomed by the Muslim ruler.[9]

These aspirations were articulated by Rabbi Isaac Luria ,considered the foremost rabbi and Jewish mystic in the community of Safed. Luria is regarded as the father of Lurianic Kabbalah, also referred to as the New Kabbalah, derived from his supposed contact with the Prophet Elijah. Elijah is an important figure of the Kabbalah, where numerous leading Kabbalists claimed to preach a higher knowledge of the Torah directly inspired by the prophet through a “revelation of Elijah” (gilluy ‘eliyahu). Elijah, like Enoch, did not die but is believed to have ascended directly to Heaven, where he was known as the archangel Metatron. The name Metatron is not mentioned in the Bible, nor in the early Enoch literature. Although Metatron is mentioned in a few brief passages in the Talmud, he appears mainly in Kabbalistic literature.

The Lurianic Kabbalah is radically different from earlier Kabbalist thought. Although based on early Jewish Gnostic traditions, the Kabbalah appeared in Southern France in the twelfth century, incorporating motifs from Neoplatonism and Gnosticism. After spreading to Northern Spain in the thirteenth century, it culminated with the Zohar, the main text of the Kabbalah. The sixteenth century renaissance of Kabbalah in Safed, which included Luria and other mystically-inclined rabbis, was shaped by their particular spiritual and historical outlook. In Luria’s theology, messianism was fundamental. He was preoccupied not with the world’s creation but with its end: with the salvation of souls and the arrival of the millennium. However, according to Luria, salvation would be achieved not by divine grace but by collective human effort, or what he referred to as tikkun (repair), a concept derived from his interpretation of classic references in the Zohar.

The reception of Luria’s theology became strongly messianic through the influence Jacob Berab. After the expulsion of Jews from Spain, Berab fled first to North Africa and was in Palestine in 1522, where his plan was the reintroduction of the old practice of ordination, known as “semikhah,” to be based in Safed. Classical semikhah traced a line of authority back to Moses and the Great Sanhedrin, an assembly of twenty-three to seventy-one men appointed in every city in ancient Israel. However, classical semikhah died out in the fourth or fifth century AD. According to the opinion of Maimonides, the Messiah would not appear suddenly, but the Jews would have to prepare for him. One of the primary pre-conditions needed was the establishment of a universally recognized Jewish tribunal. Maimonides had also advised that if the rabbis in Palestine could agree to ordain one for themselves. Thus, in 1538 rabbis in Safed ordained Berab who would then form a new Sanhedrin. Berab then ordained a few other rabbis, including the chief Rabbi of Jerusalem ibn Habib. However, the two had a falling out, and as a result, Rebab lost support for his revived Sanhedrin.[10]

Holy Vehm

Sigismund was also a member of the Vehmgericht, also known as the Holy Vehm, a secret tribunal founded to administer law in the Holy Roman Empire, particularly Westphalia, between the early thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, based on a fraternal organization called “free judges.”[11] According to tradition, the Vehm originated after the conquest of Saxony in 772 AD by Charlemagne, who instituted a reign of terror against pagans, enforced by the Secret Tribunal. In order to pacify the lands of Saxon, he deported 30,000 Saxons across the Rhine and replaced them by a similar number of Christian Gauls. The district of Germany where they settled became known as West Gaul or West Wales, and eventually Westphalia. The Gauls were charged with suppressing the pagans and terrorizing them into submission, often through lynching, by being hung from a tree.[12] An etymology suggested by James Skene in 1824 derives the word from Baumgericht (“Tree law”), supposedly the remnant of a pagan “forest law” of the Wild hunt and pagan secret societies.[13]

For centuries, the Vehm remained illegal, but in I37I, after the Peace of Westphalia, reinforced by the Templars, according to the Freemason Clavel, in his Histoire Pittoresque de la Franc-maconnerie et des Societes Secretes, 1843, the Vehm established themselves throughout the whole of eastern Germany. Clavel also linked the Vehm in its general aim with the Assassins. According to Clavel, “What, in its beginnings, had an appearance of equity and salutary result degenerated later into a crying abuse. The association no longer used its power to protect the feeble against the oppression of the strong; it employed it to satisfy personal vengeance.”[14]

The Vehm operated like a secret society, communicating with each other by secret signs and passwords, and they all pledged to serve the summons of the secret tribunals and to execute their judgment. The members of Vehm, which then openly included high-ranking church officials, were known as Die Wissenden (“The Knowers”), and were required to keep his knowledge secret, even from his closest family. Any free man “of pure bred German stock” and of good character could become a judge.[15] The Vehm had three grades of initiation. The ordinary initiates were Schoffen (free judge); its officers Freigrafen (free count), and the leader was the Stuhlherr (chairman). The candidate for initiation was led blindfold before the Tribunal, presided over by a Stuhlherr or his substitute, a Freigraf, with a sword and branch of willow at his side.[16] They were then initiated into the secret signs by which members recognized each other, and were presented with a rope and a dagger on which were engraved the Kabbalistic letters S.S.G.G., supposed to mean Stein, Strick, Gras, grün (stone, rope, grass, green).[17] Sometimes known as Secret Soldiers of Light, masked men would nail a summons to the gates of a castle. A noble who chose to obey the summons would arrive late at night at a designated place. Masked men would emerge and place a hood on his head. At midnight, the hood would be removed and the accused would find himself in a vast underground vault, facing the tribunal, masked and dressed in black.[18] There is a tradition that one of the methods of execution was telling the victim to go and kiss the statue of the Virgin, a type of Iron Maiden. On approaching it, its doors would open and the victim was drawn in and closed around him by a secret mechanism, before falling through a trap door and being cut to pieces.[19]

Abramelin the Mage

Emperor Sigismund appears in a grimoire titled The Book of Abramelin, which gained significant popularity amongst occult groups of the eighteenth century, in particular the influential Golden Dawn. The provenance of the text has not been definitively identified. The earliest manuscripts are two versions that date from about 1608, written in German and are now found in Wolfenbüttel. The introduction to an alchemical book attributed to Nicholas Flamel, published in Paris in 1612 as Livre des figures hiéroglyphiques, and in London in 1624 as Exposition of the Hieroglyphical Figures, claims that Flamel had had purchased the book in 1357. The book tells the story of an Egyptian mage named Abramelin, who taught a system of magical and Kabbalistic secrets to Abraham of Worms, a Jew in Worms, Germany, presumed to have lived from approximately 1362 to 1458. After concluding his studies with Abramelin, Abraham recounts that he travelled to Hungary and employed his skills to give the Emperor Sigismund a “Familiar Spirit of the Second Hierarchy, even as he commanded me, and he availed himself of its services with prudence.”

Abraham of Worms also confesses to have used magical means to bring about Sigismund’s marriage with his second wife, Barbara of Cilli (1392 – 1451), with whom he co-founded the Order of the Dragon in 1408. Barbara came from the once powerful Cilli family, whose ancestral home was in the fortress town of Celje, in the Duchy of Styria, now Slovenia. Barbara inherited a unique genetic marker, Haplogroup T, which suggests likely secret Jewish ancestry. Barbara of Cilli belonged specifically to subclade T2, whose distribution varies greatly with the ratio of subhaplogroup T2e to T2b, from a low in Britain and Ireland, to a high in Saudi Arabia.[20] Within subhaplogroup T2e, a very rare motif is identified among Sephardic Jews of Turkey and Bulgaria and suspected Conversos from the New World.[21]

Sigismund’s only daughter and successor from Barbara was Elizabeth of Luxembourg. In 1411, Sigismund had managed to have the Hungarian estates promise that they would recognize Elizabeth’s right to the Holy Crown of Hungary and elect her future husband as king, Albert II of Germany (1397 – 1439), of the House of Hapsburg. Elizabeth’s hereditary right was acquired by Sigismund by marrying his first wife, Mary of Hungary, from whom Elizabeth was not descended. Mary was the grand-daughter of Charles I of Hungary, who inherited the throne of Hungary through his grandmother, Maria of Hungary, the daughter of Stephen V of Hungary, the nephew of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, who performed the Miracle of the Roses. Charles I also founded the Hungarian Order of Saint George, which inspired Sigismund to found his own Order of the Dragon.

Abraham of Worms also claimed, “I aided the flight of the Duke [probably Albert II of Germany], and of his Pope John [XXIII], from the Council of Constance, who would otherwise have fallen into the hands of the enraged Emperor [Sigismund]; and the latter having asked me to predict unto him which one of the two Popes, John XXIII and Martin V, should gain in the end, my prophecy was verified; that fortune befalling which I had predicted unto him at Ratisbon. John XXIII (1410–1415) was antipope during the Western Schism, that had resulted from the confusion following the Avignon Papacy. At the instigation of Sigismund, Pope John called the Council of Constance of 1413, which deposed John XXIII and Benedict XIII, accepted Gregory XII’s resignation, and elected Pope Martin V to replace them, thus ending the contributed to end the Western Schism in 1417.

Genealogy of the Order of the Dragon

• SIGISMUND OF LUXEMBOURG, HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR (founder of the ORDER OF THE DRAGON) + Barbara of Celje

  • Elizabeth of Luxembourg + Albert II of Germany (see Genealogy of the House of Habsburg)

    • Elizabeth of Austria + Casimir IV, King of Poland

      • Vladislaus II of Hungary (Order of the Dragon) + Anne of Foix-Candale

        • Anna Jagellonica + Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor (Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece)

          • Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor (Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece) + Maria of Austria, Holy Roman Empress

            • Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor (Order of the Garter, Order of the Golden Fleece, sponsor of John Dee)

          • Eleanor, Duchess of Mantua + William I, Duke of Mantua

            • Margherita, Duchess consort of Ferrara + Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio (ally of Rudolf II)

            • Vincenzo I Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua (Order of the Golden Fleece) + Eleonora de' Medici

              • Margherita Gonzaga + Henry II, Duke of Lorraine

          • Charles II, Archduke of Austria + Maria Anna of Bavaria

            • Anne of Austria + Sigismund III Vasa (see below)

            • Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor + Maria Anna of Bavaria

            • Margaret of Austria, Queen of Spain + Philip III of Spain

              • Anne of Austria + Louis XIII of France

              • Philip IV of Spain (Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece) + Elisabeth of France (see below)

            • Maria Christina, Princess of Transylvania + Sigismund Báthory (nephew of Elizabeth Bathory)

          • Joanna, Grand Duchess of Tuscany + Francesco I de Medici (son of Cosimo I de Medici, knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and Eleanor of Toledo, brought up in Naples at the household of Don Samuel Abarbanel, son of Jacob Abarbanel)

            • MARIE DE MEDICI + Henry IV of France

            • Eleanor de Medici + Vincenzo I Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua (Order of the Golden Fleece, nephew of Louis Gonzaga, Grand Master of the Priory of Sion)

        • Louis II of Hungary + Mary of Austria (see above)

      • Barbara Jagiellon + George, Duke of Saxony

        • Christine of Saxony + PHILIP, LANDGRAVE OF HESSE (supporter of Marin Luther, founded the Schmalkaldic League with John Frederick I, Elector of Saxony, who commissioned Luther Rose. See Genealogy of the Dukes of Saxony)

      • Sophia of Poland + Frederick I, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach (see above)

        • George, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach

        • Albert, Duke of Prussia (Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, founder of the Duchy of Prussia) + Dorothea (daughter of Frederick I of Denmark)

        • Albert, Duke of Prussia + Anna Maria

        • Johann of Brandenburg-Ansbach (Order of the Golden Fleece)

      • Sigismund I the Old (Order of the Golden Fleece) + Bona Sforza (see above)

        • Sigismund II Augustus + Barbara Radziwiłł (accused of promiscuity and witchcraft)

          • Sigismund II Augustus

        • Anna Jagiellon + Stephen Báthory (sponsor of John Dee and uncle of Elizabeth Báthory, the “Blood Countess”)

        • Catherine Jagiellon + John III of Sweden (brother of Charles IX of Sweden, whose son Gustavus Adolphus was the father of Queen Christina)

          • Sigismund III Vasa (from whom the Vasa kings of Poland were descended. Raised by Jesuits, sponsored alchemist Sendivogius) + Anne of Austria (see above)

            • Władysław IV Vasa (Abraham von Franckenberg presented to his court a list the great Christian Kabbalists of history appended to Guillaume Postel’s Absconditomm a Constitutione Mundi Clavis)

The Council of Constance also contributed to the Hussite Wars, when Jan Hus (c. 1372 – 1415) was condemned as a heretic, leading to his execution, despite the fact that Sigismund had granted him a safe-conduct and protested against his imprisonment.[22] As King of Bohemia, Sigismund’s brother, Wenceslaus IV also sought to protect Hus and his followers against the demands of the Roman Catholic Church. A note in the Book of Acts of the Theological Faculty of the University of Vienna of 1419 mentions a conspiracy between the Waldensiens, Jews and Hus’ followers.[23] According to Louis I. Newman, in Jewish Influence on Christian Reform Movements, there was distinct Jewish influence in Hus’ thought. Hus made use of the works of the Jews of Prague, and quotes from Rashi, the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel and the commentary of Gershom ben Judah. He makes extensive use of the Postilla of Nicholas of Lyra, which in turn is based on Rashi.[24] Not only was Hus stigmatized as a “Judaizer,” but when he was about to be burned at the stake for heresy in 1415, he was denounced with the words: “Oh thou accursed Judas, who breaking away from the counsels of peace, hast consulted with the Jews.”[25] Thus, while the Council of Constance ended the Papal Schism, the latter period of Sigismund’s life was dominated the Hussite Wars, fought between the Hussites and the combined Christian Catholic forces of Sigismund, the Papacy, European monarchs loyal to the Catholic Church.

Albert II ordered the systematic destruction of the Jewish communities in the duchy of Austria in 1421, known as the “Vienna Gesera.” Albert II had Jews arrested in 1420 and over the course of a few months drove them out of Austria under accusations of arms dealing with Hussites, in addition to claims of ritual murder and host desecration. At the instigation of the Italian rabbinate, Pope Martin V condemned the forced conversion of Jews with threats of excommunication. Nevertheless, all Jews left in Vienna, more than two hundred, were sentenced to death on March 12, 1421, and brutally executed by burning on the same day at the Gänseweide in Erdberg. Stones from the destroyed synagogue were used to build a new faculty building at the University of Vienna.

Abraham of Worms also boasts that he summoned 2000 “artificial cavalry” to support Frederick I, Elector of Saxony (1370 – 1428) in his war against the Hussites. For his victory at the Battle of Brüx on August 5, 1421, Frederick I received the Saxon Electorate from Emperor Sigismund. Frederick I’s son, Frederick II, Elector of Saxony (1412 – 1464), a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, married Margaret of Austria, daughter of Ernest, Duke of Austria (1377 – 1424), of the House of Habsburg and a member of the Order of the Dragon. Ernest was the son of Leopold III, Duke of Inner Austria and Viridis Visconti. Margaret’s brother was Frederick III, who succeeded Sigismund as Holy Roman Emperor. Frederick III married Eleanor of Portugal, daughter of Edward, King of Portugal, brother of Prince Henry the Navigator, Grand Master of the Order of Christ.

Barbara performed ceremonial duties as the first lady of Europe in the Council of Constance. However, Barbara was very unpopular with the nobility, who resented her sympathy for the Hussites. In 1418, they accused her of having committed adultery while her husband was attending the Council of Constance. Because she was accused of adultery and intrigue, Barbara became popularly known as “The German Messalina,” named after the scandalous third wife of Emperor Claudius.[26] Barbara has also been portrayed as a lesbian vampire. Aeneas Silvio Piccolomini, later to be elected Pope Pius II, chronicled Barbara in his Historia Bohemica written in 1458, where he accused her of associating with “heretics” and denying the afterlife, and claimed that, after the death of Albert II, Barbara and her daughter Elizabeth used to profane the Holy Communion by drinking real human blood during the liturgy. Barbara was also accused of maintaining a female harem and staging huge sexual orgies with young girls.[27]

According to Balkan folklore, Barbara known as the “Black Queen,” is remembered as a beautiful but cruel woman with long black hair, who was always dressed in black. Since she dabbled in black magic, she was able to control various beasts. She apparently kept a black raven which was trained to gouge the eyes and tear off the skin of her enemies. The queen had many lovers, but when she lost interest in them, she would order her guards to throw them over the walls of the castle. She reportedly gave herself and the Zagreb fortress of Medvedgrad, ruled by her brother Frederick, to the Devil to save her treasure from Turkish attacks. She Later tried to trick the devil but failed. She was turned into a snake. But once every hundred years, on a certain day, it is possible for a man who, if he encounters her in the form of a snake, to remove the curse with a kiss.[28]

Barbara also had a reputation as an astrologer and alchemist. Stanislav Južnič, described Barbara as “the richest female alchemist of all times,” and how she used very expensive but easily breakable tools for her experiments, such that today there is no remaining evidence.[29] In a manuscript that is now lost around 1440, the Bohemian alchemist Johann von Laz is said to have reported on their alchemical experiments in the castle above Samobor, where she kept a laboratory in the basement.[30]

Dracula

In 1431, Emperor Sigismund crowned Vlad II, prince of Wallachia (before 1395 – 1447), prince of Wallachia in Nuremberg and also conferred upon him membership in two prestigious orders, those of Saint Ladislas and the Order of the Dragon.[31] It was Vlad II’s son, Vlad III the Impaler (1431 – 1476/77), who inspired the name of the vampire “Count Dracula” in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. The name Dracula means “Son of Dracul,” and was a reference to being invested with the Order of the Dragon. In the Romanian language, the word dracul can mean either “the dragon” or, especially in the present day, “the devil.” Vlad acquired the name “The Impaler” for his preferred method of torture and execution of his enemies by impalement.

Vlad’s reputation was connected to the impalement that was his favorite form of execution. One horrific example occurred when Vlad III found himself outnumbered by Ottoman army led by Mehmed II, who had conquered Constantinople, Vlad adopted a scorched earth policy and retreated towards Târgoviște. The Ottomans discovered a “forest of the impaled,” according to the Byzantine historian Laonikos Chalkokondyles c. 1430 – c. 1470):

The sultan's army entered into the area of the impalements, which was seventeen stades long and seven stades wide. There were large stakes there on which, as it was said, about twenty thousand men, women, and children had been spitted, quite a sight for the Turks and the sultan himself. The sultan was seized with amazement and said that it was not possible to deprive of his country a man who had done such great deeds, who had such a diabolical understanding of how to govern his realm and its people. And he said that a man who had done such things was worth much. The rest of the Turks were dumbfounded when they saw the multitude of men on the stakes. There were infants too affixed to their mothers on the stakes, and birds had made their nests in their entrails.[32]

Stories about Vlad’s brutality were circulated during his lifetime by members of the Order of the Dragon. Courtiers of Matthias Corvinus, (1443 – 1490), King of Hungary and Croatia and member of the Order of the Dragon, promoted their spread. The papal legate, Niccolo Modrussiense, (c. 1427 – 1480), the Pope's representative at the courts of Matthias Corvinus and King Stephen Tomašević of Bosnia, had already written about such stories to Pope Pius II in 1462, who two years later included them in his Commentaries.[33] Meistersinger Michael Beheim (1416 – c.1472) wrote a long poem, called Von ainem wutrich der heis Trakle waida von der Walachei (“Story of a Despot Called Dracula, Voievod of Wallachia”) about Vlad’s deeds, allegedly based on his conversation with a Catholic monk who had managed to escape his prison. The poem was performed at the court of Frederick III, in Wiener Neustadt during the winter of 1463.[34]

House of Bathory

Although she initially denounced the Hussites, in later years Barbara of Cilli became an active supporter of the movement. Albert II had assisted his father-in-law Sigismund in his campaigns against the Hussites. When Sigismund died in 1437, Albert II was crowned king of Hungary in 1438, and moved his court to the Hungarian Kingdom, and continued the war against the Hussites. Albert, who feared the power of queen Barbara, captured her and transferred her to Pressburg (Bratislava in Slovakia today). In retaliation, Barbara worked behind the scenes, supporting George Podiebrad (1420 – 1471), the King of Bohemia and the leader of the Hussites, in opposition to Albert II. [35]

Albert II died in 1439 after a brief campaign against the Ottoman Empire. Elizabeth was pregnant with her son Ladislaus the Posthumous (1440 – 1457), who was crowned King of Hungary in 1440 when he was only three-months-old. For their safety, Ladislaus and his sister Anne of Austria were placed in the care of Frederick III, elected but not crowned Holy Roman Emperor. In 1439, Anne was betrothed to William III, Landgrave of Thuringia, son of Frederick I, Elector of Saxony, and was sent to live at the Saxonian court.

In 1447, Emperor Frederick III proposed to marry Anne’s sister, Elizabeth of Austria to Charles the Bold, son of Philip the Good, founder of the Order of the Golden Fleece. However, those plans fell through and Elizabeth married Casimir IV, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania (1427 – 1492), and a knight of the Order of the Garter. Poland under Casimir IV, by defeating the Teutonic Knights in the Thirteen Years’ War, recovered Pomerania, and the Jagiellonian dynasty became one of the leading royal houses in Europe. Their son was Vladislaus II of Hungary, a member of the Order of the Dragon, was the father of Anna Jagellonica, the wife of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor.

Vladislaus II’s brother was Sigismund I the Old (1467 – 1548), King of Poland and a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Sigismund I the Old was succeeded in 1548 by his only son, Sigismund II (1520 – 1572), the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, who was christened as the namesake of his Habsburg maternal great-grandfather, Emperor Sigismund. Sigismund Augustus married three times. His first wife, Elizabeth of Austria, the sister of Maximilian II, died in 1545 at just eighteen. Sigismund II was then involved in several relationships with mistresses, the most famous being Barbara Radziwiłł, who was accused of promiscuity and witchcraft, and who became Sigismund’s second wife and Queen of Poland in spite of his mother’s disapproval.[36] Sigismund II and Anna Jagellonica’s sister was Catherine Jagellonica, who married John III of Sweden (1537 – 1592), whose son was Sigismund III Vasa (1566 – 1632), a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, from whom the Vasa kings of Poland were descended. Sigismund III was raised by Jesuits, who exercised a heavy influence on him. His election proved to be the greatest possible blow to the Protestant movement in Poland. The Protestants called him the “King of the Jesuits,” and Sigismund gloried in the appellation. According to contemporary opinions, he bestowed honors only on those whom they favored, and preferred their advice to that of his wisest counselors.[37]

Genealogy of VASA

• Francesco I Sforza (Order of the Crescent) + Bianca Maria Visconti (d. of Filippo Maria Visconti)

  • Galeazzo Maria Sforza + Lucrezia Landriani

    • Giovanni delle Bande Nere + Maria Salviati

      • Cosimo I de' Medici (Order of the Golden Fleece) + Eleanor of Toledo

        • Lucrezia, Duchess of Modena + Alfonso II d'Este (ally of Rudolf II)

  • Galeazzo Maria Sforza + Bona of Savoy (d. of Louis, Duke of Savoy and Anne de Lusignan of Cyprus)

    • Gian Galeazzo Sforza + Isabella of Naples (great-granddaughter of Alfonso V of Aragon, member of Order of the Dragon)

      • Bona Sforza + Sigismund I the Old (Order of the Golden Fleece)

        • Sigismund II (employed jester Jan Stanczyk) + Barbara Radziwiłł (accused of promiscuity and witchcraft)

          • Sigismund II Augustus

        • Anna Jagiellon + Stephen Báthory (sponsor of John Dee and uncle of Elizabeth Báthory, the “Blood Countess”)

        • Catherine Jagiellon + John III of Sweden

          • Sigismund III Vasa (from whom the Vasa kings of Poland were descended. Raised by Jesuits, sponsored alchemist Sendivogius)

    • Anna Sforza + Alfonso I d’Este

  • Ludovico Sforza (commissioned The Last Supper, Grand Master of the Order of the Fleur de Lys) + Beatrice d’Este (double-wedding with Anna Sforza + Alfonso I d’Este orchestrated by Leonardo da Vinci)

Chief among Sigismund III’s advisers was Peter Skarga, one of the most eminent of Polish Jesuits, and a leading figure of the Counter-Reformation in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Sigismund’s relationship with the Jesuits formed the basis for the famous painting by Polish artist Jan Matejko (1838 – 1893), illustrating the preaching of Skarga in the presbyterium of Wawel Cathedral. Another painting by Matejko depicts Sendivogius demonstrating to Sigismund III and Skarga his alchemical transmutation of a silver coin into gold.[38] Sendivogius appeared at the court of Sigismund III, and quickly achieved great fame, as the king was himself an enthusiast of alchemy.[39] The work that that launched Matejko to fame was a depiction of Jan Stanczyk (c. 1480–1560), probably the most famous jester in history, whose fame and legend were already strong during his own time, the Renaissance, who was employed by Sigismund the Old and Sigismund II. Stanczyk, the leading example of the “wise fool,” had a tremendous importance to Polish culture of later centuries, appearing in works of many artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Anna Jagiellon, the daughter of Sigismund I the Old and Bona Sforza, married Stephen Bathory (1533 – 1586), the king of Poland and the grand duke of Lithuania of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Voivode of Transylvania. The Bathory family rose to significant influence in Central Europe during the late Middle Ages, holding high military, administrative and ecclesiastical positions in the Kingdom of Hungary. The family brought forth several Princes of Transylvania and one King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania.

The emblem of the Order of the Dragon was retained on the coat of arms of several Hungarian noble families, such as Bathory. A legendary account which places the origin the Bathory in the year 900, relates how a god-fearing warrior called Vitus set out to fight a dragon, which dwelt in the swamps next to the castle of Ecsed and harassed the countryside. Vitus killed it with three thrusts of his lance and received the castle as a reward. The grateful people honored him with the names Bathory, meaning “good hero,” and animus magnanimus. In Hungarian the word bátor means “brave.” The Bathory coat of arms, granted in 1325 to the sons of Briccius, the family’s founder, was styled in reference to this legend: three horizontally placed teeth surrounded by a dragon biting its own tail.[40]

Blood Countess

Stephen’s nephew Sigismund Báthory, also a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, married (1573 – 1613), Prince of Transylvania, married Rudolf II’s niece, Maria Christina, Princess of Transylvania. Stephen’s sister, Baroness Anna Báthory, was the mother of Elizabeth Bathory (1560 – 1614), the family’s most infamous member, who has been compared with Vlad III the Impaler. Elizabeth, known as the “Blood Countess,” is regarded as the worst female serial killer in history and who was said to bathe in the blood of virgins to retain her youth. Elizabeth was married at the age of eleven to Hungary’s warrior hero, the Black Knight, Lord Ferenc Nadasdy, from one of the wealthiest and most influential families of the era in Hungary. Like his Wallachian predecessor, Vlad the Impaler, he learned the brutal practice of publicly impaling his Ottoman enemies. Through her family, Elizabeth was exposed to the occult and black magic from an early age.  Her uncle was a professed alchemist, practitioner of black magic, and Satan worshipper. Elizabeth’s own brother was a violent sexual predator.

Genealogy of Elizabeth Báthory

• Stephen VIII Báthory (1477–1534), Voivode of Transylvania + Catherine Telegdi

  • Stephen Báthory (1533 – 1586) Prince of Transylvania and King of Poland + Anna Jagiellon (d. Sigismund I the Old (Order of the Golden Fleece) + Bona Sforza, Aunt of Sigismund III Vasa, sponsor of Sendivogius, Order of the Golden Fleece)

  • Christopher (1530–1581) + Elisabeth Bocskai

    • Sigismund Báthory (Order of the Golden Fleece) + Maria Christina, Princess of Transylvania (Rudolf II’s niece)

  • Baroness Anna Báthory (? –1570) + Baron George VI Báthory (of the Ecsed branch of the family, brother of Andrew Bonaventura Báthory, who had been voivode of Transylvania)

    • ELIZABETH BATHORY (1560 – 1614) “Blood Countess” + Ferenc II Nádasdy

Contemporary accounts report her aunt Klara took a lover who killed her husband, but rumor has it she smothered her second husband herself. Other accounts have Klara as a lesbian murderess who practiced sorcery and instructed Elizabeth in the same. Elizabeth had also partook in lesbian encounters with her chamber maids at Klara’s behest. Elizabeth began surrounding herself with occultist, witches, astrologers, sorcerers and Satanists. Among these were her childhood nanny and witch Ilona Joo, her husband’s man-servant Thorko, Anna Darvula, Dorottya Szentes and Johannes Ujvary, all practitioners of black magic and satanism.[41] Bathory would often write to her husband when he was off at war boasting of her torture of both her servants and the local village girls. Nadasdy in turn would instruct her in new torture techniques he was learning abroad, and she would respond to him with delight at how well they had worked.[42]

Shortly after Nadasdy died, Elizabeth began hosting large, orgiastic, occult sessions during which she and her servants would torture the chamber maids. Elizabeth’s servants were known to circulate in black carriage with its black horses through the village each night to lure young victims back to the castle.[43] The more attractive girls were forced into sexual slavery until the Elizabeth grew bored with them, when they were tortured and killed. Others were chained in the dungeon and fattened up in order for them to produce more blood for her sadistic rituals.[44] According to the records, Elizabeth reveled in torturing the girls by piercing them with needles in the face or breasts or forcing them underneath their fingernails.[45] One of Elizabeth’s favored atrocities included having a cage constructed with spikes inside, where the victim would be placed and suspended from the ceiling, such that she and her consorts could poke the girl with hot irons, in order to be sprayed by the victim’s blood, followed by sexual orgies.[46]

Elizabeth’s cousin, Prime Minister Thurzo, held off on acting against the rumors as long as he could, but when the news eventually reach King Matthias II of Hungary he ordered that the castle be raided. Elizabeth and her followers were convicted of the murder of 80 bodies discovered in and around the castle. By the estimates according to trial testimony, bodies found, and later from Elizabeth’s own journal, the final tally of victims was between 300 and 650.[47] The Countess was sentenced to death in absentia and her cousin Thurzo had her sentence suspended indefinitely. Elizabeth herself was neither tried nor convicted, but in 1610, she was imprisoned in Slovakia, where she remained until her death four years later. When her cell was opened, the walls and floor were covered in incantations and occult symbols. A letter was found on the floor that had written the night before the castle raid, a contract Elizabeth had made with Isten, the pagan god of the Magyars, invoking him to send 99 cats to tear out the hearts of Matthias and Thurzo along with a few others.[48]

Maharal

Sendivogius was also a friend of Rudolf II, who gradually became his benefactor. Sigismund I the Old’s niece, Anna Jagellonica, was the wife of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, and the mother of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, the father of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor. Rudolf II’s mother was Maria of Austria, Holy Roman Empress, the daughter of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, head of the rising House of Habsburg, and Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Maria’s mother was Isabella of Portugal, the sister of John III. Her brother, Philip II of Spain, Grand Master of the orders of Santiago, Montesa and Calatrava, member of the Order of the Garter, and Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Philip II’s second wife was Mary I of England, “Bloody Mary”). Philip II married his niece, Rudolf’s sister, Anna of Austria, Queen of Spain. Their son was Philip II of Spain. Rudolf II himself became a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece.

In 1583, Rudolf II allied with Alfonso II d’Este (1533 – 1597) in the war against the Turks in Hungary. The son of Alfonso I d’Este and the notorious Lucrezia Borgia, Ercole II d’Este, married Renée of France, daughter of Louis XII of France. Their son Alfonso II married Lucrezia, a daughter of Cosimo I de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and Eleonora of Toledo, who was brought up in Naples at the household of Jacob Abarbanel’s son Don Samuel Abarbanel and daughter-in-law Benvenida, whom she continued to honor as her mother.[49] Alfonso II’s second wife was Rudolf II’s aunt, Barbara, eighth daughter of Ferdinand I and Anna Jagellonica, and sister of Maximilian II. Alfonso II’s third wife was his first cousin, Barbara’s aunt Margherita Gonzaga, the daughter of Guglielmo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua (1538 – 1587) and Archduchess Eleanor of Austria. Margherita’s brother was Vincenzo I Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua (1562 – 1612), who married his first cousin Eleonora de Medici, the daughter of Francesco I de Medici and Joanna of Austria. Francesco I was the son of Cosimo I de Medici and Eleonora of Toledo, who was brought up in Naples at the household of Jacob Abarbanel’s son Don Samuel Abarbanel and daughter-in-law Benvenida.[50] Eleonora’s sister was Marie de Medici.

Vincenzo I Gonzaga was a nephew of Louis Gonzaga, who was supposedly preceded as Grand Master of the Priory of Sion by Ferrante Gonzaga, also a Grand Master of the Order of the Fleur de Lys. Vincenzo Ι was a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece and created the Order of the Redemptor, or of the Most Precious Blood, approved by Pope Paul V, in 1608. In 1608, to appease the continuous demands of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy on Monferrato, Vincenzo, agreed on a political marriage with his first son and heir Francesco IV Gonzaga (1586 – 1612) which his daughter Margaret of Savoy. Francesco IV’s sister Eleonora was the second wife of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Francesco IV’s younger brother, Vincenzo II Gonzaga (1594 – 1627), was in contact with the famous Polish alchemist Michael Sendivogius.[51] When the legitimate line of the House of Este ended in with him 1597, Rudolf II recognized as heir his cousin, Cesare d’Este, the illegitimate son Alfonso I d’Este. Cesare married Virginia de Medici and continued to rule in the imperial duchies and carried on the family name.

Galeazzo Maria Sforza also married Bona of Savoy, daughter of Philip II, Duke of Savoy and Margaret of Bourbon. Their daughter, Anna Sforza, was the first wife of Alfonso I d’Este. Anna’s brother, Gian Galeazzo Sforza, married Isabella of Naples, the granddaughter of Alfonso V of Aragon, a member of the Order of the Dragon, and whose son, knight Ferdinand I of Naples, was a knight of the Order of the Garter and the Order of the Golden Fleece. Their daughter, Bona Sforza, married Sigismund I the Old

Rudolf II had moved the capital from Vienna to Prague in Bohemia. There arrived not only John Dee and his associate Edward Kelly, but also Johannes Kepler, and Giordano Bruno, the famous Renaissance heretic and occultist. There Tycho Brahe (1546 – 1601), who was well known in his lifetime as an astronomer, astrologer, and alchemist built an observatory, where he was assisted by Kepler, who developed his three laws of planetary motion. Tycho received the support of Frederick II of Denmark (1534 – 1588) and his wife Queen Sophia. Their daughter Anne of Denmark married King James I of England. In 1597, after disagreements with her brother, the new Danish king, Christian IV (1577 – 1648), a knight of the Order of the Garter, Brahe went into exile and was invited by Rudolf II to Prague where he became the official imperial astronomer.

Rudolf also devoted vast sums of money to the building of his library, which comprised of the standard corpus of Hermetic works as well as the notorious Picatrix, the astrological work of the Sabians. The emperor’s fascination with Hermeticism was matched by his interest in the Jewish Kabbalah. The reign of Rudolf II was a golden age of Jewry in Prague. With the end of the Premyslid dynasty, the first few decades of the fourteenth century had become a period of general insecurity for the Jews of Bohemia. The long reign of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV (1316 – 1378), though, again brought the Jews of Prague new privileges. Charles IV ensured their protection, and allowed them to settle within the walls of Prague’s New Town, which he founded in 1348. And in 1357, Charles IV allowed the Jews of Prague to have their own city flag, a red banner that featured, in gold, the Kabbalistic six-pointed star, known as the “Star of David,” or “Seal of Solomon,” being the first Jewish flag of its kind.

In 1557, Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I (1503 –1564), at the instigation of his younger son, the Archduke Ferdinand, who was governor of the region, issued a decree exiling all Jews from Prague and Bohemia. Many Jewish families departed, but a number of families who managed to earn exceptions remained. This situation lasted until the Archduke’s brother, Maximilian II, Rudolf II’s father, ascended the throne. The new king revoked all decrees of expulsion by degrees, and instead confirmed many of the forgotten privileges originally granted to the Jews.

Under Rudolf II, many Jewish refugees who had been expelled from Moravia, Germany, Austria and Spain came to Prague. In Prague, Jews studied Kabbalah undisturbed. The city, says Yates, “was a great center for Jewish Cabalism, and a very remarkable personality, Rabbi Loew (between 1512 and 1526 – 1609), was prominent in Prague in the late sixteenth century.” Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, also known as the Maharal (Hebrew acronym of Moreinu Ha-Rav Loew (“Our Teacher, Rabbi Loew”), who had positive relations with Rudolf II. Rabbi Loew published more than fifty religious and philosophical books and became the focus of legends, as the mystical miracle worker who created the Golem, which acted as a guardian over the Jews, from the recipe prescribed by Rabbi Eleazar of Worms, the last major member of the Hasidei Ashkenaz, as derived from the Sefer Yetizirah.

John Dee

It was thanks to their acquaintance with Sendivogius that Stephen Bathory agreed to finance the experiments of John Dee and his assistant Edward Kelley.[52] King James’ wife Anne of Denmark was close to Sendivogius’s friend Alexander Seton and with William Schaw, King James’ Master of Works, an important figure in the development of Freemasonry in Scotland as the author of the Schaw Statutes of the Mother Lodge of Kilwinnig. Frances Yates considered a link between the philosophy of John Dee and Rosicrucianism to have been Heinrich Khunrath (c. 1560 – 1605), a disciple of Paracelsus, who travelled widely after 1588, including a stay at the court of Rudolf II. Before reaching Prague, Khunrath had met Dee at Bremen in 1589, when Dee was on his way back to England from Bohemia. Khunrath praised Dee in his later works, and also met Edward Kelley who had remained behind after he and Dee had parted ways. Khunrath’s major work Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom contained seven Arcanes, or Rosicrucian Keys. On one of his plates is the symbol of Dee’s Hieroglyphic Monad.

In 1583, when Dee was in Prague he tried to interest the mystically-inclined Rudolf II in his imperialist agenda and angelic communications. Dee believed that he had found the secret of conjuring angels by numerical computations in the Kabbalist tradition.[53] Through conversations with “angels,” Dee believed himself to be invested with special responsibilities of communication which he shared with the great biblical prophets Elijah, Enoch, and St. John, the author of the Book of Revelation.[54] Dee was told by the angels that the magic would give superhuman powers to its practitioners, change the political structure of Europe, and herald the coming of the Apocalypse. Dee was convinced that human knowledge had been steadily declining since the expulsion of Adam from Paradise, and the natural world had been corrupted through mankind’s sin. Only the redemption of humanity and the natural world through the apocalyptic return of Christ could reverse the trend. Therefore, the angels told him, they had been divinely instructed to share their powers, conferring him with supernatural mastery over the natural world. The angels, effectively, were delivering the “philosopher’s stone” that could perfect all things.[55]

The angels also promised that Dee would serve to restore religious unity through reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants. According to Peter French, Dee believed in a “Hermetic religion of love” that would heal the divisions between Protestants and Catholics.[56] But Dee also believed that the prophecies were “to be published … all the World over.”[57] The angels told Dee that he would help lead the establishment of a new, angelically-revealed universal religion that would also include the Jews and the Ismaili sect of Islam.[58] The conversion of the Jews was crucial to the apocalyptic expectations of Dee’s time. According to Deborah Harkness, “Many of Dee’s remarks about conversion in the angel conversations concerned them and combined a paradoxical though fairly common early modern blend of anti-Semitism with an intense interest in secret, mystical Hebrew knowledge.”[59]

To gain support for his political ambitions, Dee continued to search for a sponsor though neither Elizabeth nor Philip II of Spain expressed any interest in his plans. The angels commanded Dee to tell the emperor he was possessed by demons, and command him to heed the angelic message. “If you will hear me, and believe me, you shall Triumph,” Dee told Rudolf, but “If you will not hear me, The Lord, the God that made Heaven and Hell… will throw you headlong down from your seat.”[60] The objective of Dee’s mission was referred to by a contemporary observer:

A learned and renowned Englishman whose name was Doctor Dee came to Prague to see the Emperor Rudolf II and was at first well received by him; he predicted that a miraculous reformation would presently come about in the Christian world and would prove the ruin not only of the city of Constantinople but of Rome also. These predictions he did not cease to spread among the populace.[61]

However, Rudolf nevertheless rejected Dee’s invitation as well. Dee’s fortunes back in England were not much better. James did not share Elizabeth’s sympathies for Dee, and when he appealed to the king for help in clearing his reputation from charges of conjuring devils, the King ignored him. Dee finally died disgraced and in abject poverty in 1608. Nevertheless, Dee’s influence in Bohemia resulted in a subversive movement for universal religious reform which rallied the Protestant cause against the Habsburgs.

Jacob Boehme

The primary conduit for the Kabbalistic thought of Luria to Rosicrucianism was Jacob Boehme (1575 – 1624), a German Christian mystic and theologian, whose writings caused a great scandal, but nevertheless had a profound influence on such later intellectual movements as idealism and Romanticism.[62] As reported by Glenn Alexander Magee, “Boehme is a turning point in the history of Hermetic philosophy.” [63] Boehme’s views greatly influenced many Christian mystical movements, such as the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), the Philadelphians, the Gichtelians, the Society of the Woman in the Wilderness (led by Johannes Kelpius), the Ephrata Cloister, the Harmony Society, Martinism, and Christian theosophy. Poets such as John Milton, Ludwig Tieck, Novalis and William Blake found inspiration in his writings. Boehme was highly thought of by the German philosophers Baader, Schelling, Schopenhauer and Hegel.

After receiving a rudimentary education, Boehme went in 1594 or 1595 to nearby Görlitz, in Upper Lusatia, a territory of the Kingdom of Bohemia, where crypto-Calvinists, Anabaptists, the heretical Schwenkfelder Church, Paracelsians, and humanists vied with orthodox Lutherans. Böhme’s mentor was a Schwenkfeldian named Valentin Weigel (1533 – 1588), who strongly influenced the Rosicrucian movement. Böhme had a number of mystical experiences throughout his youth. His first book, commonly known as Aurora, caused a great scandal. A copy fell into the hands of Gregorius Richter, the chief pastor of Görlitz, who accused him of being the Antichrist.[64] Boehme was silenced for five years before he continued writing in secrecy, producing an enormous body of writing, and also developing a following throughout Europe, known as Behmenists.

The man responsible for communicating Lurianic influence to Boehme was his mentor Balthasar Walther (1558 – c. 1631), a Christian Kabbalist from Liegnitz in Silesia, which had been a stronghold of the Schwenkfeldians before they resettled in Görlitz.[65] Walther, who was active throughout the Holy Roman Empire, Poland, Transylvania and elsewhere. Walther was also interested in the ideas of Reuchlin and Paracelsus. In 1587, he travelled to establish contact with the “secta medicorum Paracelsi.” The circle included Abraham Behem, possibly Boehme’s mentor, a friend and correspondent of Weigel, who influenced the Rosicrucian movement. Weigel was also a member of the heretical Schwenkfelder Church, comprised mainly of members earlier expelled from Walther’s birthplace of Liegnitz.[66] Chief among them was the astronomer, mathematician and cartographer and a mayor of Görlitz, Bartholomäus Scultetus (1540 – 1614), who gave several magical and Paracelsian religious manuscripts to Walther. Scultetus had once studied with Tycho Brahe in Leipzig, and was visited by Johannes Kepler, and conferred with Rabbi Loew in Görlitz.[67] According to the astronomer and chronicler David Gans, celebrated for his connections with Kepler and Brahe, dubbed Scultetus “the greatest living astrologer.”[68]

Scultetus also prepared commentaries and editions of several of Paracelsus’ medical works. Several of these works survive in a codex in Lübeck, Germany, which included Latin extracts from the Picatrix, and a commentary on the Kabbalah, a version of books one and two of the infamous manual of angel magic, the Liber Raziel, extracts from Trithemius on the seven spirits, several magical works by Paracelsus in addition to texts by Pietro d’Abano and Hermes Trismegistus himself. According to Gabriel Naudé, d’Abano, who was tried twice and finally found guilty by the Inquisition, “The general opinion of almost all authors is, that he was the greatest magician of his time.”[69] He was chiefly condemned for three works, Heptameron, or Magical Elements of Peter de Abano, Philosopher, printed at the end of Agrippa’s works; a second which Trithemius called Elucidarium Necromanticum Petri de Abano, and a third called by the same author Liber experimentorum mirabilium de Annulis secundem, 28 Mansiom Lunæ.[70]

The network, according to Walther’s friend and biographer Abraham von Franckenberg (1593 – 1652), inspired Walther’s initial journey to the Holy Land, “with the greatest industry and effort, in search of the true hidden wisdom, which one might call kabbalah, magic, alchemy, or, more correctly, theosophy.”[71] In 1598-1599, Walther had undertaken a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in order to learn about the intricacies of the Kabbalah from groups in Safed and elsewhere, including amongst the followers of Luria.[72] Walther composed a Latin language biography of Prince Michael “the Brave” of Walachia (1558 – 1601), who was of the Draculesti branch of the House of Basarab, which began with Vlad II Dracul.

According to Franckenberg, following his trip to the Middle East, Walther, like Christian Rosenkreutz, “return’d empty, and unsatisfy’d, into his own Country,” after which he sought out Boehme, and after spending several months and conversing with him extensively, Walther found “he had reciev’d more solid answer to his curious scruples, than he had found among the best wits of those more promising Climats.”[73] Alexandre Koyré compared the hope of universal reformation expressed in Boehme’s earliest work, Aurora, to the universal reformation with the outlook of the Rosicrucian Fama.[74] In Aurora, Boehme used the allegory of a “tree of revealed truth,” and claims that, “this book is the first sprouting or vegetation of this twig, which springs or grows green in its mother, like a child that is learning to walk, and is not able to run apart at the first.” [75]

As David Walsh explains, the radical “crucial shift” of Christian philosophy and the key to Boehme’s philosophy derives from, “the idea that all reality as moving toward God to the idea of God himself as part of the movement of reality as well.” [76] Like Luria, Boehme posited that God desires to reveal Himself to Himself, a process that requires the existence of an “other,” but in Boehme’s case, that role is fulfilled by Christ. It is through Christ that the nature of God and the world is revealed to man. God’s self-revelation is fulfilled when his creation gains knowledge of him. According to Walsh, “Boehme is the herald of the self-actualizing evolutionary God.”[77] Philosophy, therefore, according to Boehme, is the history of God’s self-knowledge unfolding.

[1] Ivan Mirnik. “The Order of the Dragon as Reflected in Hungarian and Croatian Heradlry.” Genealogica Et Heraldica Sancta Andreae MMVI S. (2008). Retrieved from http://www.princeofmontenegroandmacedonia.eu/Bibliografia/CERNETIC%20CITATI%20ORDINE%20DEL%20DRAGO.pdf

[2] Christopher Hare. The high and puissant princess Marguerite of Austria, princess dowager of Spain, duchess dowager of Savoy, regent of the Netherlands (Harper & Brothers, 1907), pp. 59.

[3] Christopher Hare. Maximilian The Dreamer, Holy Roman Emperor 1459-1519 (Stanley Paul & Co., 1913), pp. 194, 230. Seton-Watson & Robert William. Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor: Stanhope historical essay 1901. (Westminster: Archibald Constable & Co., 1902), pp. 69–70.

[4] Philip Gardiner. Secret Societies: Revelations About the Freemasons, Templars, Illuminati, Nazis and the Serpent Cults (Franklin Lakes, NJ: New Page Books), p. 201.

[5] Charles William Heckethorn. The Secret Societies of all Ages and Countries. Vol 1 (London: James Hogg, 1875), p. 200.

[6] Lombard de Langres. Les Sociétés Secrètes en Allemagne, p. 341 (1819); Lecouteulx de Canteleu.

Les Sectes et Sociétès Secrètes, p. 99.

[7] Yates. Rosicrucian Enlightenment, p. 287.

[8] Yvonne Petry. Gender, Kabbalah, and the Reformation: The Mystical Theology of Guillaume Postel, 1510-1581 (Brill, 2004), p. 76.

[9] Naomi E. Pasachoff. Great Jewish Thinkers: Their Lives and Work (Behrman House, Inc, 1992) p. 54.

[10] Louis Ginzberg. “Berab, Jacob.” Jewish Encyclopedia (1908).

[11] “Fehmic Courts.” Hugh Chisholm, (ed.) Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.) (Cambridge University Press 1911).

[12] Nigel Pennick. Hitler’s Secret Sciences (Suffolk: Neville Spearman, 1981).

[13] Nigel Pennick. Magical Alphabets (Samuel Weiser, 1992), p. 179.

[14] Inquire Within. Trail of the Serpent (London: Boswell Publishing, 1936), p. 101.

[15] Andrew McCall. The Medieval Underworld (Sutton Publishing, 2004), p. 110.

[16] Walter Scott. Anne of Geierstein (1829).

[17] “Fehmic Courts.”

[18] Mark Booth. The Secret History of the World (The Overlook Press, 2010).

[19] Charles William Heckethorn. The Secret Societies of all Ages and Countries. Vol 1 (London: James Hogg, 1875), p. 205-207.

[20] “Haplogroups of European kings and queens” Eupedia. posted 19-03-09, 17:43; “Famous DNA.” International Society of Genetic Genealogy [http://isogg.org/famousdna.htm]

[21] Bedford (2012). “A Sephardic Signature in Haplogroup T mitochondrial DNA.” European Journal of Human Genetics 20 (4): 441–448

[22] Hugh Chisholm, ed. “Sigismund.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed. (Cambridge University Press, 1911).

[23] Newman. Jewish Influence on Christian Reform Movements (Columbia University Press, 1925), p. 437.

[24] Ibid., p. 441.

[25] E. H. Gillett. The Life and Times of John Huss, or the Bohemian Reformation of the Fifteenth Century (Boston, 1864), ii, 64; cited in Newman. Jewish Influences on Christian Reform Movements, p. 437.

[26] Raymond T. McNally. “In Search of the Lesbian Vampire: Barbara von Cilli, Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” and the Dragon Order.” Journal of Dracula Studies 2 (2001).

[27] Ibid.

[28] “Legend of The Black Queen.” Rabbit of Caerbannog. Retrieved from https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/2707129

[29] Stanislav Južnič. “[Chemical Laboratory of Celje Queen (at 580th Anniversary of Bohemian coronation of Queen Barbara of Celje)].” Acta chimica Slovenica, 64, 2 (June 2017).

[30] “Barbara of Celje, ‘The Black Queen’.” History of Croatia and Related History. Retrieved from https://historyofcroatia.com/2022/06/20/barbara-of-celje-the-black-queen/

[31] Matei Cazacu. Dracula (Leiden: Brill, 2017), p. 17.

[32] Laonikos Chalkokondyles: The Histories (Book 9, chapter 104).

[33] Anton Balotă. “An analysis of the Dracula tales.” In Kurt W. Treptow, (ed.), Dracula: Essays on the Life and Times of Vlad Țepeș (East European Monographs, Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1991), p. 156.

[34] Raymond T. McNally. “Vlad Țepeș in Romanian folklore.” In Kurt W. Treptow, (ed.), Dracula: Essays on the Life and Times of Vlad Țepeș (East European Monographs, Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1991), p. 200.

[35] Raymond T. McNally. “In Search of the Lesbian Vampire: Barbara von Cilli, Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla’ and the Dragon Order.” Journal of Dracula Studies, 3 (2001).

[36] Małgorzata Duczmal. Jogailaičiai (in Lithuanian). Translated by Birutė Mikalonienė; Vyturys Jarutis (Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos centras, 2012), p. 73.

[37] Albert Frederick Pollard. The Jesuits in Poland (London: Blackwell, 1892), p. 31.

[38] John Read. From Alchemy to Chemistry (New York: Dover Publications, 1984), p. 88.

[39] “Michael Sendivogius.” History of Alchemy. Retrieved from http://historyofalchemy.com/list-of-alchemists/michael-sendivogius/

[40] Christian von Stramberg, Das Haus Báthory in seinen Verzweigungen bis auf den heutigen Tag (Berlin: Manuscript für Freunde des Hauses, 1853). Cited in Farin, Heroine des Grauens, p. 354-356, 359-362.

[41] R. Florescu & R. McNally. Dracula: Prince of many faces (Boston: Little, Brown, 1989).

[42] M. Newton. The encyclopedia of serial killers (New York: Checkmark Books, 2000).

[43] R.G. Jones. Women who kill. (Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 2004).

[44] Colin Wilson. The history of murder (Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 1994).

[45] M. Newton. The encyclopedia of serial killers (New York: Checkmark Books, 2000).

[46] Ibid.

[47] H. Schechter & D. Everitt.. The A to Z encyclopedia of serial killers (New York: Pocket Books, 1997).

[48] William Seabrook. Witchcraft: Its Power in the World Today (London: George G. Harrap, 1941), p. 95.

[49] Stefanie Beth Siegmund. The Medici State and the Ghetto of Florence: The Construction of an Early Modern Jewish Community (Stanford University Press, 2006), p. 446 n. 37.

[50] Ibid.

[51] A letter from Michael Sendivogius to Vincenzo II Gonzaga, duke of Mantua (1562-1612)

[52] Andrzej Datko. “Praktyk i mistyk,” Wiedza i życie (June 12, 2012) (in Polish). Retrieved from https://www.wiz.pl/8,185.html

[53] Yates. The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, pp. xii-xiii.

[54] Harkness. John Dee’s Conversations with Angels (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 136.

[55] Deborah E Harkenss. “Shows in the Showstone: A Theater of Alchemy and Apocalypse in the Angel Conversations of John Dee (1527-1608/9).” Renaissance Quarterly 49.4 (1996), p. 279.

[56] Peter French. John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus (New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), pp. 123-125.

[57] John Dee. John Dee’s Actions with Spirits, edited with an introduction by Christopher Whitby. 2 vols. Vol. II: 376-377.

[58] Harkness. John Dee’s Conversations with Angels, p. 149.

[59] Ibid., p. 150.

[60] John Dee & Edward Kelly. A True and Faithful Relation of what happened for many years…, edited by Meric Casaubon, pp. 230-231; cited in Harkness. John Dee’s Conversations with Angels, p. 55.

[61] Cited in R. J. W. Evans, Rudolf II and his World, (Oxford, 1973), p. 224.

[62] Ibid, p. 135.

[63] Glenn Alexander Magee. Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition (Cornel: Cornell University Press, July 2001), p. 37.

[64] Leigh T.I. Penman. “A Second Christian Rosencreuz? Jacob Boehme’s Disciple Balthasar Walther (1558-c.1630) and the Kabbalah. With a Bibliography of Walther’s Printed Works.” Western Esotericism. Selected Papers Read at the Symposium on Western Esotericism held at Åbo, Finland, on 15–17 August 2007, p. 155.

[65] Ibid, p. 162.

[66] Ibid.

[67] Andrew Weeks. Boehme: An Intellectual Biography of the Seventeenth-Century Philosopher and Mystic (State University of New York Press, 1991), p. 43.

[68] Joanna Weinberg. “The Maharal of Prague and the Republic of Letters.” Tablet (December 30, 2016).

[69] Gabriel Naudé. Antiquitate Scholæ Medicæ Parisiensis.

[70] Ibid.

[71] Gründlicher und wahrhafter Bericht von dem Leben und Abscheid des in Gott selig-ruhenden Jacob Böhmens… [= Böhme 1730, X: (5)–31].

[72] See Penman. “A Second Christian Rosencreuz?”

[73] Abraham von Franckenberg & Durant Hotham (ed. & trans.) The Life of Jacob Behmen (London: Printed for H. Blunden, 1654); as cited Penman, “A Second Christian Rosencreuz?”, p. 157.

[74] Alexandre Koyré. La philosophie de Jacob Boehme (Paris, 1929), p. 42 n.

[75] Ibid., p. 38.

[76] David Walsh. “A Mythology of Reason.” p. 151; cited in Glenn Magee. Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition, p. 38.

[77] Ibid., p. 39.

Volume One

Introduction

1. Babylon

2. Ancient Greece

3. The Hellenistic Age

4. The Book of Revelation

5. Gog and Magog

6. Eastern Mystics

7. Septimania

8. Princes' Crusade

9. The Reconquista

10. Ashkenazi Hasidim

11. The Holy Grail

12. Camelot

13. Perceval

14. The Champagne Fairs

15. Baphomet

16. The Order of Santiago

17. War of the Roses

18. The Age of Discovery

19. Renaissance & Reformation

20. Kings of Jerusalem

21. The Mason Word

22. The Order of the Dragon