House of Habsburg-Lorraine

The two important events that contributed to the emancipation of the Jews was the 1782 Edict of Tolerance when Joseph II (1741 – 1790), the brother of Marie Antoinette and Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece, extended religious freedom to the Jewish population, and the Emancipation Edict of 1812, issued by Friedrich Wilhelm III (1770 – 1840), a knight of the Order of the Garter as well as knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. As a result of the War of the Spanish Succession, the Order of the Golden Fleece was separated into a Spanish and Austrian branch. The rule over the Order of the Golden Fleece passed from the Burgundian dukes to the Austrian archduke, and from them to the Spanish kings and Holy Roman Emperors, in turn to the emperors of the Austrian and Austro-Hungarian Empire. As the Habsburgs were divided into two branches, the Spanish and Austrian, accordingly, the Order of the Golden Fleece was also divided into two such branches. In 1724, a special congress was held, in which the dispute between two branches of one dynasty was considered, but no decision was accepted. With the tacit acceptance of both sides, the Austrian and Spanish governors created two chapters of the Order, independent of each other.

In 1700, the last of the Spanish Habsburgs, Charles II, Grand Master of the order, designated as his heir his grand-nephew, Phillip of France, Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XV, who became Phillip V, a designation that led to the War of the Spanish Succession. The legitimate Sovereign Heads of the order, Phillip V and Ferdinand VI, united the Golden Fleece to the Crown of Spain. However, in 1712, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, who claimed the throne as an agnatic member of the House of Habsburg, together with the Spanish crown, appropriated the treasury of the order, and proclaimed himself Sovereign Head. After the defeat of the Habsburgs in 1714, Philip was recognized as king of Spain and the fate of the order was never clearly decided. Ever since, there have been two Orders of the Golden Fleece, the one being conferred by the Austrian Monarch, the other by the Spanish Monarch, and each contesting the legitimacy of the other.[1]

Genealogy of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine

• RENE II, DUKE OF LORRAINE (founder of the Order of the Fleur de Lys, purported Grand Master of the PRIORY OF SION) + Philippa of Guelders

  • Antoine, Duke of Lorraine + Renée de Bourbon (see above)

    • Francis I, Duke of Lorraine + Princess Christina of Denmark

      • Charles III, Duke of Lorraine + Claude of France

        • Henry II, Duke of Lorraine + Margherita Gonzaga

        • Christina of Lorraine (patron of Galileo)

      • Renata of Lorraine + William V, Duke of Bavaria

        • Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria + Maria Anna of Austria

          • Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria + Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy

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

          • Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor + Maria Anna of Spain

            • Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor + Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg

              • Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor + Wilhelmine Amalie of Brunswick

                • Maria Josepha of Austria + AUGUSTUS III OF POLAND (godfather of JACOB FRANK and his Intimate Counselor was BARON VON HUND, founder of the Strict Observance)

              • Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor + Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel

                • EMPRESS MARIA THERESA + FRANCIS I, HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR (see below)

          • Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor + Eleanora Gonzaga

    • Anna of Lorraine + René of Chalon, Prince of Orange (knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Willed the Principality of Orange to William the Silent)

  • Claude, Duke of Guise (founder of House of Guise, made a duke by Francis I of France) + Antoinette de Bourbon

    • MARIE OF GUISE + James V of Scotland

      • Mary, Queen of Scots + Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley

        • JAMES VI OF SCOTLAND (later King James I of England) + Anne of Denmark

          • Charles I of England + Henrietta Maria of France (daughter of Henry VI of France + Marie de Medici)

          • ALCHEMICAL WEDDING: Elizabeth Stuart + Frederick V of the Palatinate

            • Charles Louis, (1617 – 1680)

              • Charles II (1651 – 1685) + Princess Wilhelmine Ernestine of Denmark

              • Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine + PHILIPPE I, DUKE OF ORLEANS (grandson of Marie de Medici; brother of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” of France)

                • PHILIPPE II, DUKE OF ORLEANS (friend of CHEVALIER MICHAEL RAMSAY) + Françoise Marie de Bourbon (daughter of Louis XIV, King of France and Madame de Montespan, practitioner of the Black Mass involved in the Affair of the Poisons)

                  • Louis, Duke of Orléans (1703–1752)

                    • Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans (1725 – 1785)

                      • LOUIS PHILIPPE, DUKE OF ORLEANS (Philippe Égalité, Grand Master of the Grand Orient of France, member of ILLUMINATI, friend of RABBI SAMUEL JACOB FALK)

                  • Charlotte Aglaé d'Orléans + Francesco III d'Este, Duke of Modena

                • Élisabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Lorraine + Leopold, Duke of Lorraine (see above)

                  • FRANCIS I, HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR (Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece) + EMPRESS MARIA THERESA (supporter of JACOB FRANK, cousin of MOSES DOBRUSCHKA, founder of the ASIATIC BRETHREN. See above)

                    • JOSEPH II, HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR (Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece, had affair with Eva, daughter of JACOB FRANK)

                    • Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor (Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece) + Maria Luisa of Spain (d. Charles III of Spain, Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece)

                    • Archduke Ferdinand of Austria

                    • MARIE ANTOINETTE + Louis XVI of France

                    • Archduke Maximilian Francis (ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, Grand Master of the TEUTONIC KNIGHTS, PRIORY OF SION, ORDER OF THE FLEUR DE LYS)

                  • Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine (ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE, Grand Master of the TEUTONIC KNIGHTS, PRIORY OF SION)

            • Edward, Count Palatine of Simmern + Anna Gonzaga

            • Sophia of Hannover + Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover (1629 – 1698)

              • Sophia Charlotte (1668–1705) + Frederick I of Prussia (1657 – 1713)

                • Frederick William I of Prussia (1720 – 1785) + Sophia Dorothea of Hanover (see below)

              • George I of England (1660 – 1727)

                • Sophia Dorothea of Hanover + Frederick William I of Prussia (see above)

                  • FREDERICK II OF THE GREAT OF PRUSSIA (1712 – 1786)

                  • Prince Augustus William of Prussia (1722 – 1758)

                    • FREDERICK WILLIAM II OF PRUSSIA (1744 – 1797, member of GOLD AND ROSY CROSS)

                  • Louisa Ulrika of Prussia + Louisa Ulrika of Prussia (1710 – 1771)

                    • CHARLES XIII OF SWEDEN (1748 – 1818, Grand Master of the Swedish Order of Freemasons, whose secretary Karl A.A. Boheman, a member of the ASIATIC BRETHREN and emissary of PRINCE CHARLES OF HESSE-KASSEL) + Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotte of Holstein-Gottorp (cousin of PRINCE CHARLES OF HESSE-KASSEL)

                    • GUSTAV III OF SWEDEN (1746 – 1792, patron of SWEDENBORG and Grand Master of Swedish Rite of Freemasonry) + Sophia Magdalena of Denmark

                • George II of England (1683 – 1760) + Sophia Dorothea of Celle

                  • Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707 – 1751) + Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha

                    • King George III (1738 – 1820) + Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

                  • Princess Louise of Great Britain (1724 – 1751 + King Frederick V of Denmark (1723 – 1766)

                    • Sophia Magdalena of Denmark + GUSTAV III OF SWEDEN (see above)

                    • Christian VII of Denmark (1749 – 1808) + Caroline Matilda of Great Britain (d. of Frederick, Prince of Wales, by Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha)

                      • Frederick VI of Denmark (1768 – 1839) + Marie of Hesse-Kassel (see below)

                    • Princess Louise of Denmark (1750–1831) + PRINCE CHARLES OF HESSE-KASSEL (see below)

                    • Frederick, Hereditary Prince of Denmark + Duchess Sophia Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

                      • Princess Charlotte of Denmark + Prince William of Hesse-Kassel (see below)

                  • Princess Mary of Great Britain (1723 – 1772) + Frederick II, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (see above)

                    • William I, Elector of Hesse (1743 – 1821) - (hired MAYER AMSCHEL ROTHSCHILD who founded Rothschild dynasty)

                    • PRINCE CHARLES OF HESSE-KASSEL (Member of ILLUMINATI and Grand Master of ASIATIC BRETHREN, friend of Comte St. Germain) + Princess Louise of Denmark (see above)

                    • Frederick of Hesse-Kassel (1747 – 1837) + Princess Caroline of Nassau-Usingen

Charles VI’s daughter, Empress Maria Theresa, the mother of Joseph II, is said to have issued new statutes of the order in 1765.[2] The problem of female inheritance was avoided on the accession of Maria Theresa in 1740, as sovereignty of the order passed not to herself but to her husband, Emperor Francis I (1708 – 1765), Duke of Lorraine and Bar, who would become Grand Master of the Austrian branch of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The marriage in 1736 of Francis I and Maria Theresa, later successively Queen of Bohemia, Queen of Hungary and Archduchess of Austria, originated the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, the legitimate surviving line of the House of Habsburg and the House of Lorraine.

Baron von Hund, the founder of the Strict Observance, was a Counselor of State to Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Emperor Francis I (1708 – 1765).[3] Baron von Hund was also Intimate Counselor of Maria Theresa’s first cousin’s husband, Augustus III of Poland, who was Jacob Frank’s godfather at his baptism.[4] Accompanied by his daughter Eve, Jacob Frank repeatedly traveled to Vienna and succeeded in gaining the favor of Maria Theresa, who regarded him as a disseminator of Christianity among the Jews.[5] A year after this first visit to Vienna, Frank moved to the city for a several months and applied to Joseph II for the title of count of the Holy Roman Empire. However, though Joseph II initially seemed to welcome this request, after the emperor ordered Chancellor Kaunitz to investigate Frank’s background, he decided to turn Frank down. When meeting Joseph II, Frank was usually accompanied by his daughter Eve, and rumors about Joseph’s alleged affair with her started to circulate.[6]

Maria Theresa’s mother was Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, the great-granddaughter of Augustus the Younger, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, a member of the Fruitbearing Society, a friend of Johann Valentin Andreae, the purported author of the Rosicrucian manifestos, and of Rabbi Templo, who created the famous model of the Temple of Jerusalem, and whose design of the cherubim became the basis for the coat of arms of the Grand Lodge of Antients. Augustus’ wife, Dorothea of Anhalt-Zerbst, was the daughter of Rudolph, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, brother of Christian of Anhalt, the chief advisor of Frederick V of the Palatinate, and architect of the political agenda behind the Rosicrucian movement. Christian’s brother was Augustus, Prince of Anhalt-Plötzkau, who headed Rosicrucian court that included the millenarian Paul Nagel, a collaborator of Baltazar Walther, whose trips to the Middle East inspired the legend of Christian Rosenkreutz and was the source of the Lurianic Kabbalah of Jacob Boehme.

The current house orders are the Order of the Golden Fleece and the Imperial and Royal Order of Saint George. The origins of the Order of St. George of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine date back to 1308, when Emperor Henry VII, founder of the House of Luxembourg, donated the Order of the Old Nobility, or later Order of the Four Roman Emperors. The Order of St. George also has traditional roots in the Austrian Order of St. George, which was founded by Emperor Frederick III of Habsburg and Pope Paul II in Rome in 1469. Emperor Maximilian I of Habsburg, Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece, was a particular patron of the order. It is believed Frederick III Order of St. George by Emperor Friedrich III was connected to another previous order, the Austrian Dragon Society founded in 1409 in Ödenburg, which in turn was directly connected to the Order of the Dragon by the Hungarian King and Emperor Sigismund. In 1769, when Count Philipp Ferdinand (1734 – 1794) re-established the community as a dynastic order of the House of Limburg-Stirum, he wished to honour the four emperors of the Luxembourg dynasty, Henry VII, Charles IV, Wencesla, and Sigismund.

The branch of Vaudemont and Guise from the House of Lorraine become the major branch after a brief interlude in 1453–1473, when the duchy passed from Charles de Bourbon’s daughter to her husband John of Calabria, and Lorraine reverted to the House of Vaudemont, a junior branch of the House of Lorraine, in the person of René II, Duke of Lorraine, who later added to his titles that of Duke of Bar. René II was the son of Yolande of Bar, who purported succeeded her René of Anjou, known as Good King Rene, as Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. His father was Ferri de Vaudemont, who belonged to René of Anjou’s Order of the Crescent, with Francesco I Sforza. René II married Philippa of Guelders, the niece of Philip the Good, founder of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Philippa’s father was Adolf, Duke of Guelders, the son of Catherine of Cleves, from the House of Cleves, who claimed descent from the Knight of the Swan, and resided in the Grail castle Schwanenburg, where Wolfram von Eschenbach wrote the story of Lohengrin, immortalized in Wagner’s famous opera. Catherine was the daughter of Adolph I, Duke of Cleves, who was raised by Emperor Sigismun, founder of the Order of the Dragon, as duke and a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1417. Philippa and René II’s son, Claude, Duke of Guise, was the father of Marie de Guise, who married James V of Scotland, a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Catherine of Cleves, another niece of Philip the Good, married James V’s great-grandfather, James II of Scotland. James V was the son of James IV of Scotland and Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII, a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, Elizabeth of York, daughter of Elizabeth Woodville who was accused of witchcraft.

Marie of Cleves’s sister, Catherine of Cleves, married Charles, Duke of Orléans, a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Francis I was the oldest surviving son of Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, and his wife Princess Élisabeth Charlotte d’Orléans (1676 – 1744), daughter of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans—a descendant of Charles, Duke of Orléans—and of his second wife Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine, the daughter of Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine, the son of Rosicrucian “Alchemical Wedding” of Frederick V of the Palatinate and Elizabeth Stuart, which was replete with symbolism of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Elizabeth Charlotte was also the cousin of King George I of England. Élisabeth Charlotte’s brother was Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, a friend of Chevalier Michael Ramsay. Philippe II married Françoise Marie de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Blois, a legitimized daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, who was close to his father Philippe I.[7] Madame de Montespan was involved in a scandal known as L’affaire des poisons (“Affair of the Poisons”), where Catherine Monvoisin, known as La Voisin, and the priest Étienne Guibourg performed Black Masses for human sacrifice for her.[8] Francis I’s brother, Charles de Lorraine (1746–1780), is listed as a purported Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. Charles’ purported successor as Grand Master was Maximilian de Lorraine (1780–1801), the son of Francis and Maria Theresa. Their sister was Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI who were executed in the French Revolution. In 1768, Maximilian became Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ordre of the Fleur de Lys, originally founded by René of Anjou, purported Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. In 1769, Maximilian was made the coadjutor of the Teutonic Knights by his uncle the Grand Master Charles of Lorraine, and as result in 1774 he travelled extensively throughout Europe visiting Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and France, becoming acquainted with members of the Order.[9]

Francis I was a knight of the Order of the Garter. In 1731, Francis I was initiated into Freemasonry of the Grand Lodge of England by John Desaguliers at a specially convened lodge in The Hague at the house of the British Ambassador, Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield.[10] During a subsequent visit to England, Francis was made a Master Mason at another specially convened lodge at Houghton Hall, the Norfolk estate of British Prime Minister Robert Walpole.[11]

Josephism

Maximilian’s brother was Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 and sole ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 until his death, and who would succeed his father as Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece. In 1804, Joseph II established the Austrian Empire from the lands of the Habsburg Monarchy, and adopted the double-headed eagle, known as the Reichsadler, the traditional symbol of the Holy Roman Empire, aggrandized by an inescutcheon emblem of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine and the Order of the Golden Fleece, as its coat of arms. The was double-headed eagle was also adopted in Orthodox principalities such as Serbia, Albania and Russia. Following the revolutions of 1848 in the German states, the Reichsadler was restored as a symbol of national unity, becoming the coat of arms of the short-lived German Empire and subsequently the German Confederation from its restoration in 1850 until its dissolution in 1866. It was once again restored in 1871 when a single-headed eagle with a Prussian inescutcheon became the insignia of the German Empire, under Otto von Bismarck, a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The Weimar Republic after World War I adopted a plain version of the Reichsadler, and a stylized eagle combined with the swastika was made the national emblem by order of Hitler in 1935.

Joseph II was supportive of Freemasonry, which he found highly compatible with his own Enlightenment ideals, although he apparently never joined a lodge himself.[12] Joseph II, according to Barruel, was in possession of a circular emanating from the Grand Orient in France and sent out to all the Lodges. The Duke of Orleans’ signature was on the copy in Joseph II’s possession, which read:

… all the Lodges are summoned to confederate together, to unite their efforts to maintain the revolution; to gain over it, in all parts, friends, partisans, and protectors; to propagate the flame, to vivify the spirit, to excite zeal and ardor for it, in every state, and by every means in their power.[13]

Regarded as a proponent of enlightened despotism, Joseph II been ranked, with Catherine the Great of Russia and Frederick the Great of Prussia, as one of the three great Enlightenment monarchs.[14] Although he believed a monarch should sacrifice everything for the welfare of his people, he did not think his subjects should be given a voice in the political process, in keeping with his maxim “Everything for the people, nothing by the people.”[15] “Josephinism” was the collective domestic policies during the ten years in which Joseph attempted to legislate a series of reforms to remodel Austria in the form of what liberals saw as an ideal “Enlightened” state.

The architect of the principles which guided the “benevolent despotism” of Emperor Joseph II was Joseph von Sonnenfels (1732 – 1817), who along with along with Ignaz Edler von Born (1742 – 1791) was a leader of the Illuminati lodge, the famous Masonic Lodge Zur wahren Eintracht.[16] Sonnenfels was a member of a Sabbatean family from Moravia who had converted to Christianity. Sonnenfels’ grandfather, Rabbi Michael Chasid and Sonnenfels’ father Rabbi Lipman Perlin (1705 – 1768) was Rabbi Eibeschütz’s pupil in Prague.[17] Perlin converted to Catholicism between 1735 and 1741 and had his two sons baptized. He moved to Vienna where he became teacher of Oriental languages at the university there and court interpreter to Maria Theresa. He took the name Alois Wienner and was ennobled Baron von Sonnenfels in 1746. His son Joseph became the chief proponent enlightened despotism, and as adviser to Maria Theresa, and her son, the future Emperor Joseph II, and Leopold II, Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and one of the most influential men in the Hapsburg Empire in the second half of the eighteenth century.

One of the leading lights of the Austrian Enlightenment, Sonnenfels was an author and politician who drafted a wide range of legislation. Sonnenfels published many books and pamphlets and his textbooks on national economy were influential for decades. In his Über die Liebe des Vaterlandes (1771) he introduced the concept of the unifying term of “fatherland” into Hapsburg lands. Sonnenfels was insinuated into the Illuminati in 1782, becoming Prefect for Vienna until the post was taken over by von Born in July of that year. [18]

Mesmerism

Joseph II was a supporter of the arts, and most importantly of composers such as and Antonio Salieri (1750 – 1825) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791), also attended the Zur wahren Eintracht, led by Sonnenfels and von Born.[19] Mozart was also a close friend of Franz Anton Mesmer, a German Freemason and physician and associate of Count Cagliostro, who became widely popular for artificially inducing trance-like states, today known as hypnotism. Mesmer’s name is the root of the English verb “mesmerize.” With an interest in astronomy, Mesmer theorized that there was a natural energetic transference that occurred between all things, which he called “animal magnetism,” due to a magnetic fluid in the body which was supposed to connect humanity, the earth and the stars. Mesmer’s therapy, explain Erika Fromm and Ronald Shor, “was a combination of the ancient procedure of laying on of hands with a disguised version of medieval demonic exorcism. His theory was a combination of ancient astrological concepts, medieval mysticism, and seventeenth-century vitalism.”[20] Additionally, some subjects of mesmerism spontaneously engaged in telepathy, precognition and clairvoyance.[21]

After studying at the Jesuit universities in Germany, Mesmer took up the study of medicine at the University of Vienna in 1759. In 1766 he published a doctoral dissertation with the Latin title De planetarum influxu in corpus humanum (“On the Influence of the Planets on the Human Body”). Building largely on Newton’s theories, Mesmer expounded on certain tides in the human body that might be accounted for by the movements of the sun and moon. In January 1768, Mesmer married Anna Maria von Posch, a wealthy widow, and established himself as a doctor in Vienna.

In 1774, Mesmer collaborated with Maximilian Hell (1720 – 1792) an astronomer and an ordained Jesuit priest from the Kingdom of Hungary. In 1771, Hell was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Hell was also interested in magnet therapy, although it was Mesmer who went further with this and received most of the credit. Mesmer advanced the theory of “animal magnetism,” and attempted to cure patients by placing magnets on them. However, Mesmer fell out of favor in Vienna in 1778 after a failed attempt at restoring the sight of blind piano prodigy Maria Theresa Paradis. Maria Theresa Paradis was the daughter of Joseph Anton von Paradis, Imperial Secretary of Commerce and Court Councilor to the Empress Maria Theresa, for whom she was named.

Mesmer then moved to Paris where he established a medical practice. In his first years in Paris, Mesmer tried and failed to get either the Royal Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society of Medicine to provide official approval for his doctrines. He found only one physician of high professional and social standing, Charles d’Eslon, to become a disciple. In 1779, with d’Eslon’s encouragement, Mesmer wrote Mémoire sur la découverte du magnétisme animal, to which he appended his famous 27 Propositions. In 1784, without Mesmer requesting it, King Louis XVI appointed four members of the Faculty of Medicine as commissioners to investigate animal magnetism as practiced by d’Eslon. At the request of these commissioners the King appointed five additional commissioners from the Royal Academy of Sciences. These included the chemist Antoine Lavoisier, the doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, the astronomer Jean Sylvain Bailly, and the American ambassador Benjamin Franklin.[22]

Golden and Rosy Cross

Mozart may have written his Piano Concerto No 18 in B-flat major for Maria Theresa Paradis. Hans-Josef Irmen suspected that Mozart may have been a member of the Frankist secret society, the Asiatic Brethren.[23] During his final year, Jacob Falk contributed to the creation of a Judeo-Christian rite founded by Moses Dobrushka (1753 – 1794), Jacob Frank’s cousin and the grandson of Jonathan Eybeschütz, named the Asiatic Brethren, which was dedicated to a transcendent form of Kabbalah and which did not require conversion from either religion.[24] As Franz Thomas von Schoenfeld, Dobrushka entered into Austrian Freemasonry and became involved with Hans Heinrich von Ecker und Eckhoffen (1750 – 1790 who had been a leader of the Golden and Rosy Cross, which claimed descent from the Order of the Golden Fleece. The order would eventually claim Swedenborg among its associates.[25] Swedenborg acquired a German edition of Paracelsus’s Gulden Fleiss (1716).  The alchemical interpretation of the Golden Fleece is expanded upon by Michael Maier, physician to Rudolf II and Maurice of Hesse-Kassel, in Arcana arcanissima.

Maurice of Hesse-Kassel was a close friend of Frederick V of the Palatinate of the Alchemical Wedding, and the ancestor of the influential Illuminati member Prince Charles of Hesse-Kassel, of the Hesse-Kassel family who gave Mayer Amschel Rothschild his start in founding the famous dynasty. A year before he organized the Masonic Congress of Wilhelmsbad, and two years before joining the Illuminati, Prince Charles had been initiated into the Golden and Rosy Cross in 1781.[26] The Golden and Rosy Cross was founded in 1747 or 1757 in Berlin, as a revival of the seventeenth-century Rosicrucians organized in 1710 by Sincerus Renatus, and maintained ties with Baron Hund’s Strict Observance. Under the leadership of its founder Hermann Fictuld (1700 – c. 1777), because of political pressure, the Golden and Rosy Cross, reformed itself extensively in 1767 and again in 1777.[27] In Aureum Vellus, he gave a detailed alchemical explanation of the history and symbolism of the Golden Fleece. As a result, reports Schuchard, various Écossais Masons became interested in the alchemical symbolism of the Golden Fleece.[28]

The Rosicrucian or alchemical theme is reflected in the badge of the order, which depicts Masonic objects encircled by an ourobouros, the ancient Gnostic symbol of the serpent biting its own tail.[29] Its members claimed that the leaders of the Rosicrucian Order had invented Freemasonry and only they knew the secret meaning of Masonic symbols. The Rosicrucian Order, they also claimed, had been founded by Egyptian named “Ormusse” or “Licht-Weise” who had emigrated to Scotland, with the name “Builders from the East.” Then the original Order disappeared and was supposed to have been resurrected by Oliver Cromwell as “Freemasonry.”[30]

“Since 1779, in Aufklärung Berlin, the capital of Prussia,” explains Terry Melanson, the author of Perfectibilists: The 18th Century Bavarian Order of the Illuminati, “the Golden and Rosy Cross had maneuvered in the shadows with great success.”[31] It was partly as a reaction against the mystical and alchemical orientation of the Golden and Rosy Cross that Weishaupt had the idea of founding the Illuminati. According to Weishaupt:

It was precisely around this time [1777] that an officer named Ecker created a lodge in Burghausen that poured into alchemy and began to spread strongly. A member of this lodge came to Ingolstadt to preach and find the best students. Unfortunately, his choice was based on those I had identified. The idea of having lost such promising young people in this way, of seeing them also contaminated by the corrupting epidemic of gold-making [alchemy] and other similar follies, was for me atrocious and unbearable. I went to take advice from a young man [Baron Franz Xaver von Zwack] in whom I had placed the greatest trust. He encouraged me to use my influence on students to counter this scourge as much as possible in an effective way: the creation of a society.[32]

The feud between the Rosicrucians and Illuminati, explains Melanson, was legendary.[33] The mystical Rosicrucians were rabid opponents of the Illuminati, and as early as 1781 they had been disseminating damning material concerning them. They set up an espionage system and were successful in uncovering the details about the Illuminati long before the authorities had even become suspicious. In November 1783, the “Three Globes” Lodge in Berlin, which had come to be entirely controlled by the Golden and Rosy Cross, declared war upon the Illuminati, describing the latter as a “masonic sect that undermines the Christian religion and turns Freemasonry into a political system.”[34] The Rosicrucians were still seeking revenge against the order as late as 1789, just after the start of the French Revolution.[35] According to ex-Illuminati member Leopold Alois Hoffmann, who belonged to the Asiatic Brethren:

A group of us pledged ourselves to work for the overthrow of Illuminatism, and I was selected as spokesman for the group. My new acquaintances handed me secret papers whose content stimulated my zeal and indignation.[36]

The first to publicly condemn the Illuminati was ex-Jesuit Ignaz Franck. He accused the Masonic “traitors,” the “brothers of Judas,” of preparing the way for the Antichrist.[37] September 1, 1786, soon after the Franck had sent an official report and a list of Bavarian Illuminati to the Grand Prior of the Golden and Rosy Cross of Southern Germany, the latter responded with the following communication: 

The last days of the Illuminati in Bavaria rapidly approach. Since the death of the priest Lang, struck [dead by lightning] in Regensburg alongside Weishaupt while preparing to leave on a mission to Berlin, I have with all my power worked toward their destruction, for maintaining the religion of Jesus and the salvation of my homeland, for the young and for the good of our Order.[38]

Franck was a friend of Johann Christoph von Wöllner (1732 – 1800), who along with Johann Rudolf von Bischoffwerder (1741 – 1803), were chiefly responsible for inducting into the Golden and Rosy Cross the Crown Prince of Prussia, who became in 1786 the king, Frederick William II of Prussia (1744 – 1797), was the nephew of Frederick II the Great, and a member of the Berlin Illuminati[39] Wöllner, a Prussian pastor inclined to mysticism, was appointed Minister of Justice and head of the Office for the Worship by Frederick William II. From 1766 to 1781, Wöllner worked as an employee of Nicolai’s Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek. He became a member of the Lodge Zur Eintracht in 1768, the oldest daughter Lodge of Mother Lodge Three Globes in Berlin, which in 1764 was merged with the Strict Observance. In 1774, Wöllner left Zur Eintracht to take over as deputy Grand Master to the Duke of Brunswick of the Mother Lodge. At the end of 1778, Wöllner came into contact with the Order of the Gold and Rosicrucians, which he quickly regarded as the “only true O[rder].”[40] Wöllner was the Supreme Director at the head of a large network of Rosicrucian initiates, which included 26 Circles and a total of 200 adepts.[41]

In 1758, Bischoffwerder was accepted into the Masonic Lodge Philadelphia zu den drei goldenen Armen (“Philadelphia to the three golden arms”) in Halle. In 1765, he joined the Scottish lodge Zur gekrönten Schlange (“To the crowned serpent”) in Görlitz, which adhered to the Strict Observance, and soon afterwards took up the position of a superior and protector of the VII Province in Saxony of this system. As a knight Eques a grypho (“knight of the griffin”) he became one of the leading personalities of the Strict Observance in Saxony. Bischoffwerder became a member of the Golden and Rosy Cross in Berlin-Potsdam, and with the help of Wöllner, finally managed to get the Crown Prince, Frederick William II, to be accepted into the order in 1781 under the name Ormerus Magnus. After his accession to the throne in 1786, Frederick William II promoted Bischoffwerder to lieutenant colonel and appointed him adjutant general in 1789, chief of the cavalry corps in 1790 and major general in 1791. Bischoffwerder gained increasing influence at the court. For his services he received the Order of the Black Eagle.

Bischoffwerder was also a friend of Wolf Eybeschütz, the son of crypto-Sabbatean rabbi Jonathan Eybeschütz, who went by the names of Benjamin Ze’ev, Jonas Wolf or Wolf Jonas. According to Pawel Maciejko, along with Jacob Frank, Wolf is “one of the two most important Sabbatian leaders in mid-eighteenth century East-Central Europe.”[42] Wolf was sent by his father to Turkey where he was initiated into the rituals of the Dönmeh of Salonica, and reportedly married ta daughter or granddaughter of their leader, Baruchiah Russo. When Wolf returned to Altona, he bought a house and had it furnished with luxurious furniture, art and sculptures including figures of nude courtesans dancing with lovers and hunting scenes of the priests of the ancient Greeks goddess Venus. In the garden he placed statuettes of the Virgin Mary feeding her child and of other known Christian saints.[43] According to Maciejko, Wolf used his foreknowledge of the reappearance of Halley’s Comet to establish himself as a Sabbatian leader by demonstrating that the Shekhinah had descended upon him in the form of the pillar of fire.[44] Wolf wrote a small Kabbalistic treatise about the beginnings of the Last Days, where he attributed to himself characteristics of the messiah, identifying his father with King David and himself with his son Solomon, builder of the Temple of Jerusalem.[45]

Wolf experimented in alchemy and was said to own artifacts including the throne of Solomon, “brought by angels directly from the heavens,” and “made of pure gold,” the harp of David, the Urim and Thummin and the staff of Moses. Urim and Thummin are elements of the hoshen, the breastplate worn by the High Priest, the chief religious official of Judaism, which held special significance for the Golden and Rosy Cross and the Asiatic Brethen.  They were apparently lost to history until they were resurrected as ritual magical artefacts by the Kabbalistic alchemist Heinrich Khunrath in the late sixteenth century. A century later, they are found again among the initiates of the Golden and Rosy Cross, conceived, in accordance with Khunrath’s tradition, as Philosophers’ Stones, inlaid upon an object composed of the seven metals and utilized for scrying by the order’s leadership, the “seven elders” or Magi. Frederick William II became a Magus himself after he “passed the Urim and Thummim and was approved” in 1783.[46]

After leaving Altona, Wolf went back to Moravia and re-established contacts with the Sabbatean network in Brünn, Prossnitz and Holleschau. Initially, he seemed to have been gaining a following. To get away from his creditors, he fled Moravia and arrived in Vienna, where he established contacts with Habsburg elite and was reportedly received at audiences with Maria Teresa and Joseph II.[47] In 1776, a few months after Jacob Frank had made a similar request, Wolf petitioned Joseph II to be granted the title of baron. Though initially granted, the diploma of enoblement was suspended when it was discovered Wolf was Jewish. Nevertheless, Wolf styled himself Baron von Adlersthal.[48] Wolf later moved to Dresden and became a court agent of Elector of Saxony Frederick Augustus. Prussian officials visiting Saxony met with their Austrian counterparts at Wolf’s home Priesnitz near Dresden. Wolf other acquaintances included other members of the Dobrushka and the Eybeschütz families, who on some occasions served as go-betweens for political schemes hatched in Wolf’s home. For example, in early 1790s, Bischoffherder, in his capacity as advisor to Frederick William II, actively pursued the policy of Austro-Prussian rapprochement aiming at the consolidation of common policy towards France and Poland.[49]

Asiatic Brethren

Wöllner and von Bischoffwerder were also members of the Asiatic Brethren.[50] Having been expelled in 1780 from another order, Eckhoffen created the “Ritter des Lichts” (Knights of Light) or “Fratres Lucis” (Brothers of Light), allegedly from “seven wise Fathers, heads of the seven churches in Asia.” The order was later reorganized in 1781 as the Asiatic Brethren, with the assistance of Dobrushka and members of the Habsburg nobility.[51] The full name of the order was the Knights and Brethren of St. John the Evangelist of Asia in Europe. The Asiatic Brethren were named in reference to the Ismaili Brethren of Sincerity, or the so-called “Eastern Mystics” tied to the Ormusse legend, brought to Scotland by the Templars.[52]

According to a Christian member of the order, the Jewish initiates drew on the theurgic traditions of “Shabbetai Zevi, Falk (the Baal Shem of London), Frank, and their similar fellows.”[53] As indicated by Pawel Maciejko, the Asiatic Brethren were also widely reputed to exercise a powerful influence in Freemasonry. In 1781, Great Pantler August Moszynski wrote a note for Stanislaus Augustus, the last King and Grand Duke of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the son of Jacob Frank’s “godfather,” King Augustus III of Poland, who had retained Baron von Hund as Intimate Counsellor:

I became convinced that there existed in the past, and maybe exists to this day, wisdom unknown to the present-day scholars; its subjects are things natural, which are commonly considered supernatural, and also traditions regarding cycles of change undergone by our planet, and finally the knowledge less inaccurate than ours of the Divine Being… It is said that these teachings are contained in a Chaldean book called “The Zohar” [le Zohar]. However, they are expressed there in a way so convoluted and allegorical, and so demanding the knowledge of the numerical values and etymologies of the [Hebrew and Aramaic] words, that only very few Jews understand [the Zohar]. Among these who do, Falk and Frank are often mentioned; they know enough to be able to perform purely physical experiments, which however seem supernatural to people who witness them and are considered pure charlatanry by scholars who hear of them… It is likely that after the destruction of the [Second] Temple, remnants of this priestly knowledge were dispersed in the Orient… among the Arabs… who transferred its tidbits to the Crusaders, especially the Templars, who in turn passed them over to their inheritors; in the last century, the latter reappeared under the name of Freemasons.[54]

The Asiatic Brethren’s meetings were called Melchizedek lodges, and unlike other Masonic orders, they allowed Jews to join, as well as Turks, Persians and Armenians. They were allowed as “ancient genuine brothers from Asia.” The Asiatic Brethren were influenced by the ideas of St. Martin, whom Ecker and Schoenfeld had met, and according to Gershom Scholem, mixed Kabbalistic and Sabbatean ideas with Christian theosophical ones.[55] According to a manuscript history by Franz J. Molitor (1779 – 1860), a member of the order, the Asiatic Brethren drew on the magic of the Sabbateans, “such as Sabbatai Zevi, Falk (the Baal Shem of London), Frank, and their similar fellows.”[56]

Ecker und Eckhoffen was Chancellor of the Order of Saint Joachim. A member of the Illuminati who was also a founding member of the Order of Saint Joachim was Leopold Reichsgraf von Kollowrat-Krakowsky (1727 – 1809), who was also the Commander of the Priory of Bohemia for the Sovereign Order of Malta. In his 1883 work, A Historical Inquiry In Regard To The Grand Constitutions Of 1786, Albert Pike, American Civil War general and Grand Master of the Scottish Rite, stated that the disbanded Illuminati continued on through the various branches of the Rosicrucian Order, including the later versions of the Gold Rosicrucians, namely, the Asiatic Brethren, and the various Orders of Light, specifically mentioning “The Order of Saint Joachim (St. Jonathan).”[57] Emperor Leopold II formally acknowledged and sanctioned the wearing of the insignia of the Order in 1790 with a document of Royal Concession. He appointed the Comte Christian von Leiningen, a knight of The Order of Saint Joachim and relative of the Grand Master, to be Chamberlain of the Imperial Palace. On 27 April 1791, Frederick William II issued a similar Royal Grant recognizing the legitimacy of the Order and permitting the wearing of the insignia of The Order of Saint Joachim on Prussian officers’ military uniforms.[58]

According to the anonymous Rituals of the Fratres Lucis, Saint-Martin, along with the chief occultists of the period, including Emmanuel Swedenborg, Comte de Saint Germain and Count Cagliostro, were all members of the Asiatic Brethren. Bischoffwerder also had contact with the notorious Count of Saint Germain, whom he visited in 1777 on behalf of his intimate friend, the Duke of Friedrich August von Braunschweig-Oels, the nephew of Ferdinand Duke of Brunswick, to form a personal judgment about him and his familiarity with the Rosicrucians.[59] The Asiatic Brethren also composed a Sanhedrin, over which presided the Duke of Brunswick.[60]

A librarian to the Hesse-Kassel family, Marquis de Luchet, exposed the Asiatic Brethren as an Illuminati front in his 1789 work, Essai sur la secte des Illumines. According to de Luchet, their secret goal was “This Order is for the whole of Europe destined to the great goal of union [of Freemasonry].”[61] Illuminatus Prince Charles of Hesse-Kassel, a close friend of the Comte Saint-Germain, would also join the Asiatic Brethren in 1785, and subsequently become the Grand Master of the Order.[62] Hans Heinrich von Ecker und Eckhoffen, who hoped to present his new order to the Masonic world at the congress at Wilhelmsbad, travelled to Schleswig in early 1782 to meet with Prince Charles.[63] However, the Asiatic Brethren were widely attacked by rival fringe-masonic organizations, including the Golden and Rosy Cross. When Ecker tried to present his system at the Convention of Wilhelmsbad, his application was rejected, partly because he was discredited by his rivals, who presented him as a magician dealing with dangerous occult powers.[64]

By 1785 the Asiatic Brethren had spread far beyond Vienna, mostly in central Europe and Germany, as well as Prague, Innsbruck, Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and could possibly have counted as many as several thousand members at the time. The order’s presence in Scandinavia was attributable to efforts Karl A.A. Boheman (1764 – 1831).[65] Boheman lived in Denmark during the 1790s, where he worked for the Illuminés d’Avignon, on the commission of its grand master Prince Charles of Hesse-Kassel. As such, he visited Sweden on several occasions, during which he was presented to Duke Charles of Södermanland, later Charles XIII of Sweden, the Grand Master of Swedish Freemasonry, who made him his secretary. Boheman acquired a great deal of influence upon the duke and his consort, Duchess Charlotte (1759 – 1818), Prince Charles of Hesse-Kassel’ cousin, who were both interested in mysticism and the occult. In 1802, Boheman founded the Masonic lodge Gula Rosen (“Yellow Rose”), which was open to both sexes, and among its members he inducted, other than the prince and princess, the mother of Gustav III’s wife, Princess Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt (1754 – 1832), and other members of the Swedish nobility.[66] Princess Amalie’s sister Princess Frederica Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt (1751 – 1805), was the wife of Frederick William II of Prussia and became Queen of Prussia.

In 1803, Boheman attempted to initiate Duke Charles’ nephew, Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden (1778 – 1837), which led to what has been called the Boheman Affair. Gustav IV Adolf feared Boheman, after a warning from Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt (1757 – 1814), a Finnish-Swedish-Russian courtier and diplomat, who identified Boheman as a member of the Illuminati and the Yellow Rose as a society of conspirators. Gustav had Boheman arrested, the Duke Charles and Duchess questioned, banned secret societies at court, forced Duke Charles to exclude Boheman from the Freemasons and had Boheman exiled for crimes against national security. Boheman was banished from Denmark as well and forced to continue to Germany.[67]

Casanova

Wolf Eybeschütz was also associated with Count Joseph Carl Emmanuel Waldstein, the patron of the notorious “womanizer,” Giacomo Casanova (1725 – 1798).[68] Also connected with the Asiatic Brethren, Casanova associated with European royalty, popes, and cardinals, along with luminaries such as Voltaire, Goethe, and Mozart. Casanova travelled to Brünn to meet with Frank, in context of the Habsburg Masonic scene.[69] Casanova was also an avid practitioner of various occult disciplines and claimed to be highly proficient in the Kabbalah.[70] In 1793, he wrote to Eve Frank: “[I have been] as diligent a student of this vast discipline as your late father.”[71] Casanova’s Historie de ma vie refers to Saint-Germain, Cagliostro, and other adventurers. He also had some knowledge of Hebrew, numerous contacts with Jews and a lifelong interest in Jewish topics. At the age of sixteen, he successfully defended a doctoral dissertation in canon law on the subject Utrum hebrei possint construrere novas synagogas.[72] Casanova visited the Masonic lodge Zur aufgehenden Sonne im Orient (“The Rising Sun in the Orient”) in Brünn, of the Templar Strict Observance. The Master of the lodge was Count von Salm-Reifferscheidt, founder of the Golden and Rosy Cross.[73]

Casanova was also a friend of fellow Mason Count Karl von Zinzendorf und Pottendor (1739 – 1813), the nephew of Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf of the Moravian Church. Karl was privy finance minister to Emperor Joseph II. As privy finance minister, Karl introduced a uniform system of accounting for state revenues, expenditures, and debts of the territories of the Austrian crown.[74] Karl served the government of Austria in a variety of capacities, including as governor of Trieste, and rose to high rank at the Habsburg court. Zinzendorf helped Casanova, when Casanova sought refuge in Trieste after his expulsion from Venice.[75]

In Brünn, Casanova visited the Masonic lodge Zur aufgehenden Sonne im Orient (“The Rising Sun in the Orient”), whose Masters was Count von Salm-Reifferscheidt, founder of the Golden and Rosy Cross, and who had been a representative for Austria at the Wilhelmsbad Masonic Congress in 1782.[76] The lodge also included two members of the Frank family, who supported converted Jews and acted as patrons of the Dobrushkas.[77] Casanova also had dealings with the Schönfeld family. It was Dobrushka’s godfather, Johann Ferdinand Edler von Schoenfeld, who published Casanova’s Soliloque d’un penseur and Historie de ma fuite des prisons de la Republique de Venise.[78]

Amadeus

Finally, in Vienna with the help of the composer Salieri, Casanova met Emperor Joseph II and subsequently Mozart, at the residence of Baron Wetzlar, another converted Jew, who supported the composer and wanted to help Da Ponte, who converted to Christianity with his family and was baptized in 1763.[79] In Paris, Mesmer would again reunite with Mozart. Mesmer became a friend of Leopold Mozart, the father of the twelve-year-old composer and child prodigy. Betraying a kind of Frankist anitomianism, Mozart, in his letters and a few compositions, displayed a recurring penchant for scatological humor, a type of off-color, toilet or potty humor, dealing with bodily functions, such as defecation, urination, flatulence, and vomiting. For example, in the original manuscript of Mozart’s canon Difficile lectu are the words “lectu mihi mars” which were intended to be heard as “Leck du mich im Arsch” (“lick my arse”), a phrase commonly used in Mozart’s family circle. Endocrinologist Benjamin Simkin estimates that 39 of Mozart’s letters include scatological passages. Almost all of them are directed to Mozart’s own family, specifically his father Leopold, his mother Anna Maria, his sister Nannerl, and his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart, who all also included scatological humor in their own letters.[80] In letters to Maria Anna, which are often called the “Bäsle letters,” after the German word Bäsle, a diminutive form meaning “little cousin,” the scatology is combined with word play and sexual references. The Austrian writer Stefan Zweig sent copies of the Bäsle letters to Sigmund Freud with the following suggestion:

These nine letters… throw a psychologically very remarkable light on his erotic nature, which, more so than any other important man, has elements of infantilism and coprophilia. It would actually be a very interesting study for one of your pupils.[81]

In 1768, when court intrigue prevented the performance of Mozart’s La finta semplice, Mesmer is said to have arranged a performance in his garden of Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne, a parody of a French opera by Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Le Devin du Village, about a couple who each seek the advice of a soothsayer to investigate each other’s suspected infidelity.[82] Mozart lived at the center of the Viennese musical world, and knew a significant number and variety of people: fellow musicians, theatrical performers, fellow Salzburgers, and aristocrats, including some acquaintance with Joseph II. As an indication of Mesmer’s growing reputation, in 1777, Mozart wrote to his father Leopold to discuss the possibility of asking Mesmer to write a letter of introduction to Joseph II’s sister Marie Antoinette that might be useful to Mozart in his upcoming journey to Paris. In August 1792, not being able to return to Vienna, from which he had been banished until the end of 1794, Mesmer set off for Paris equipped with a letter of recommendation to Marie Antoinette that Joseph II had given to him before his death.

Mozart later immortalized his former patron by including a comedic reference to Mesmer in his opera Così fan tutte, or as it is subtitled, La Scuola Degli Amanti, or the school for lovers.[83]  It is commonly held that Così fan tutte was written and composed at the suggestion of the Emperor Joseph II.[84] The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749 – 1838) who also wrote Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro, an opera based on a play by Pierre Beaumarchais (1732 – 1799), another Freemason. Born Emanuele Conegliano, Da Ponte was Jewish by birth, the eldest son of Geronimo Conegliano, a widower who in 1764 converted himself and his family to Roman Catholicism in order to marry a Catholic woman. With the death of Austrian Emperor Joseph II in 1790, Da Ponte lost his patron. He was formally dismissed from the Imperial Service in 1791, due to intrigues, receiving no support from the new Emperor, Leopold.

Both Da Ponte and Mozart were Masons. Together with da Ponte, Emanuel Schikaneder (1751 – 1812) and numerous high-ranking members of the nobility and army, Mozart was a brother with equal rights in the Masonic lodge called Zur Wohltätigkeit. Schikaneder wrote the libretto to Mozart’s Masonic The Magic Flute. Mozart was a close friend of the head of the Austrian-Viennese Illuminati, the celebrated mineralogist Ignaz Edler von Born (1742 – 1791), the leading scientist in the Holy Roman Empire during the 1770s in the age of Enlightenment.[85] In 1771, Born was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and in 1774 a Fellow of the Royal Society. It has been theorized for some time that Born was the prototype behind the character Sarastro in Mozart’s Masonic opera, The Magic Flute.[86] All the characters in The Magic Flute are symbolical: Sarastro, Hierophant and Dispenser of Light, is von Born, the Queen of the Night is Maria Theresa, the anti-Masonic Empress, Monostatos, the villain, is the clergy, Pamina is Austria, while the Neophyte is the Emperor Joseph II, who succeeded Francis I; and who, it was hoped at the time, entertained thoughts of becoming a Mason.[87]

Mozart and his father Leopold were good friends of von Born and were familiar with the entire Masonic milieu in Vienna. Mozart set one of his poems to music with a song called Lied zur Gesellenreise, composed for the occasion of Mozart’s father’s elevation to the Masonic degree of Journeyman.[88] In 1785, Born’s Lodge held a celebration after he was made a Knight of the Realm, where Mozart and his father were present. Wolfgang sang his newly-composed cantata, Die Maurerfreude (“The Mason’s Joy”).[89] After the Bavarian Elector began the persecutions against the Illuminati, Leopold is recorded as “approving of the suppression of the Bavarian Illuminati even though he recognized that most of the rumors about them were exaggerated.”[90]

Mozart himself was also a friend of Adam Weishaupt, the founder of the Illuminati.[91] Mozart was also a close friend of Alois Blumauer, who in 1781/82 joined the Illuminati lodge, the famous Masonic Lodge Zur wahren Eintracht, which was under the leadership of fellow Illuminists von Born and Joseph von Sonnenfels.[92] Sonnenfels became Deputy Master of Zur wahren Eintracht in 1783 and Master of Zur Wahrheit in 1786. Mozart attended the lodge regularly, though he was already a member of another Lodge, Zur Wohlthatigkeit (“beneficence”).[93] Mozart was to keep the collected works of Sonnenfels in his library.

An entry in the autograph album of Mozart’s fellow lodge member Johann Georg Kronauer suggests that Mozart may himself have been a member of the Asiatic Brethren.[94] A number of members of the Asiatic Brethren were also friends and benefactors of Mozart, including Karl Hieronymus Paul von Erdod, Prince Wenzel Paar, Count Franz Joseph Thun und Hohenstein (1734 – 1800), and Baron Otto Heinrich von Gemmingen (1755 – 1836), who was also a member of the Illuminati.[95] Gemmingen was a Freemason and also secretary of the Provincial Lodge of Austria, a Strict Observance adherent, a prominent member of the Asiatic Brethren, and intimate with the whole Illuminist circle associate with the Lodge Zur wahren Eintracht.[96] In or before 1777, Gemmingen became a Hofkammerrat in Mannheim, assuming a set of duties from which Lessing had just resigned from, which extended to supervision of the National Theatre Mannheim. In 1778, the national theatre project became a reality when Wolfgang Heribert von Dalberg, brother of high-ranking Illuminati member, Karl Theodor von Dalberg, was appointed intendant of the National Theatre in Mannheim. Friedrich Schiller, whose own later play Intrigue and Love was clearly influenced by Gemmingen’s “Hausvater,” wrote effusively to Dalberg, with praises to be passed to the author of the work.[97] In 1781, Gemmingen resigned his position and moved to Vienna, and quickly gained access to the household of the Countess of Thun. Backed by other influential Freemasons, Gemmingen tried to support Joseph II’s reforms, using his contributions to the weekly political journals Weltmann and Wahrheiten for which he became editor in 1783. There were contributions from other Freemasons, and some of the ideas of the Illuminati were found in the journals. However, his publications attracted hostility in aristocratic and, more particularly, church circles.[98]

Both composers Beethoven and Mozart were Masons. Beethoven was associated with the Bonn Reading Society, which was exclusively controlled by former members of the Illuminati. Upon the death of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, the society commissioned him to compose a cantata in the emperor’s honor.[99] Joseph von Sonnenfels was also the dedicatee of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 15, Op. 28, which was published in 1801.[100] Joseph II’ brother, Maximilian of Lorraine, purported Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, had a keen interest in the arts especially music and among his protégés were Mozart, Hayden and Beethoven, who in his early formative years intended to dedicate his first symphony to Maximilian who unfortunately died before its completion.[101]

When Mozart’s opera Figaro was performed in Prague, and was enthusiastically received, Mozart was cordially invited by Count von Thun und Hohenstein.[102] Count von Thun und Hohenstein, who was of one of the most celebrated alchemists and Rosicrucians in Vienna, served as the Grand Master of the Golden and Rosy Cross, practiced both as a mystic Mesmerist and a channeler of spirits.[103] Count von Thun was also listed among the number of contacts of Wolf Eybeschütz.[104] Together with his wife Wilhelmine—whose famous salon was attended by Mozart— Count von Thun und Hohenstein is one of the inspirers and organizers of the composer’s success.[105] Count von Thun, who later became an Imperial Chamberlain, married Countess Maria Wilhelmine von Thun und Hohenstein, née Countess von Ulfeldt, a Viennese aristocrat known as the hostess of a musically and intellectually outstanding salon. Emperor Joseph II often stayed incognito in the house.[106] Regarded as was a “fine pianist,” she was a patron of both Mozart and Beethoven.[107] In 1781, when the twenty-five-year-old Mozart moved permanently to Vienna to pursue his musical career, he and the Countess became friends. Mozart wrote of her to his father Leopold, “[she is] the most charming and lovable lady I have ever met; and I am very high in her favor.”[108]

Countess Maria Wilhelmine’s daughter Maria Christiane Josepha married a Karl Alois, Prince Lichnowsky (1758 – 1814), an Imperial Court Chamberlain, musician and composer, and also a friend and patron to both Beethoven and Mozart. Lichnowsky was a member of the Viennese Lodges Zur Wohltätigkeit and Zur Wahrheit. With Mozart, Lichnowsky took a mysterious trip to Berlin in the spring of 1789, where they met with the Rosicrucian monarch Frederick William II. Mozart’s biographer Nicholas Till suggests that the “most likely explanation is that Lichnowsky and Mozart travelled to Berlin at Frederick William’s invitation as Rosicrucian emissaries from Vienna.”[109]

[1] “Confrérie Amical de la Toison d’Or.” Retrieved from http://www.antiquesatoz.com/sgfleece/origins.htm

[2] Homepage of the “St. Georgs-Orden - Ein europäischer Orden des Hauses Habsburg-Lothringen”. Retrieved from https://www.georgsorden.at/geschichte/?L=0

[3] Nancy Mitford. The Sun King (Penguin Publishing, London, 1966).

[4] Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince. The Sion Revelation: The Truth About the Guardians of Christ’s Sacred Bloodline (Simon and Schuster, 2006), p. 319.

[5] Ben Zion Wacholder, “Jacob Frank and the Frankists Hebrew Zoharic Letters.” Hebrew Union College Annual, Vol. LIII (1982).

[6] Pawel Maciejko. “Sabbatian Charlatans: the first Jewish cosmopolitans.” European Review of History—Revue europe´enne d’histoire, Vol. 17, No. 3 (June 2010), p. 367.

[7] Nancy Mitford. The Sun King (Penguin Publishing, London, 1966).

[8] Ibid.

[9] “Maximilian Von Habsburg.” The Order of the Fleur de Lys. Retrieved from https://www.orderofthefleurdelys.org.uk/order-history/maximilian-von-hapsburg/

[10] Audrey Carpenter. John Theophilus Desaguliers: A Natural Philosopher, Engineer and Freemason in Newtonian England (London: Continuum, 2011), p. 47.

[11] Maclolm Davies. The masonic muse: songs, music, and musicians associated with Dutch freemasonry, 1730–1806 (Utrecht: Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 1995), pp. 22–23.

[12] Saul K Padover. The Revolutionary Emperor, Joseph the Second, 1741–1790 (1934), p. 79.

[13] Melanson. Perfectibilists (Kindle Locations 2013-2017).

[14] Derek Beale. Joseph II: Against the World, 1780–1790 (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

[15] “Joseph II: The long-awaited son.” World of the Habsburgs. Retrieved from http://www.habsburger.net/en/chapter/joseph-ii-long-awaited-son

[16] Melanson. Perfectibilists (Kindle Locations 5719-5720).

[17] Pawel Maciejko. The Mixed Multitude (University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.. Kindle Edition), p. 195 n. 95.

[18] Melanson. Perfectibilists (Kindle Locations 10550-10575).

[19] Ibid. (Kindle Locations 5719-5720).

[20] Erika Fromm and Ronald Shor, (eds.) Hypnosis: Development in Research and New Perspectives (New York; Aldine Publishing Co., 1979), p. 20.

[21] Ibid., p. 10.

[22] Sadie F. Dingfelder. “The first modern psychology study: Or how Benjamin Franklin unmasked a fraud and demonstrated the power of the mind,” Monitor on Psychology, July/August 2010, Vol 41, No. 7, p. 30. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/07-08/franklin

[23] M.F.M. Van Den Berk. The Magic Flute (Leiden: Brill, 2004), p. 507.

[24] Keith Schuchard. “Falk, Samuel Jacob,” p. 357.

[25] Keith Schuchard. Emanuel Swedenborg, secret agent on Earth and in heaven, pp. 281.

[26] Melanson. Perfectibilists (Kindle Locations 666-668).

[27] Keith Schuchard. Emanuel Swedenborg, secret agent on Earth and in heaven, pp. 482–483.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Christopher Mcintosh. Rose Cross and the Age of Reason (SUNY Press, 2012), p. 66.

[30] Eugen Lennhoff, Oskar Posner, “Rosenkreuzer,” Internationales Freimaurerlexikon.

[31] Melanson. Perfectibilists (Kindle Locations 603-604).

[32] Adam Weishaupt. Pythagoras oder Betrachtungen über die geheime Welt- und Regierungs-Kunst (Frankfurt & Leipzig, 1790), p. 663-666.

[33] Melanson. Perfectibilists (Kindle Location 2462).

[34] le Forestier. Les Illuminés de Bavière et la franc-maçonnerie allemande, p. 409; Cited in Melanson. Perfectibilists (Kindle Locations 701-703).

[35] Melanson. Perfectibilists (Kindle Locations 2461-2463).

[36] Epstein. The Genesis of German Conservatism (Princeton University Press, 1966), p. 520; cited in Melanson. Perfectibilists (Kindle Locations 2455-2457).

[37] Le Forestier. Les Illuminés de Bavière et la Franc-Maçonnerie Allemande [Paris: 1914], (Archè reprint, 2001), p. 406; cited in Melanson. Perfectibilists (Kindle Locations 599-601).

[38] Melanson. Perfectibilists (Kindle Locations 890-893).

[39] Jacob Katz. Jews and Freemasons in Europe 1723-1939 (Harvard, 1970), p. 47.

[40] Reinhard Markner. “Johann Christoph Woellner.” Published in French translation in the biographical encyclopedia Le Monde maçonnique au XVIIIe siècle, edited by Charles Porset (†) and Cécile Révauger, vol. 3, pp. 2820-24. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/1171293/Johann_Christoph_Woellner

[41] Melanson. Perfectibilists (Kindle Location 606).

[42] Pawel Maciejko. “Sabbatian Charlatans: the first Jewish cosmopolitans.” European Review of History—Revue europe´enne d’histoire, Vol. 17, No. 3 (June 2010), p. 362.

[43] Ibid., p. 363.

[44] Ibid., p. 363.

[45] Pawel Maciejko. “A Portrait of the Kabbalist as a Young Man: Count Joseph Carl Emmanuel Waldstein and His Retinue.” The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 106, No. 4 (Fall 2016), pp. 521-576.

[46] Hereward Tilton. “The Urim and Thummim and the Origins of the Gold- und Rosenkreuz,” in Hans Thomas Hakl  (ed.), Octagon: Die Suche nach Vollkommenheit im Spiegel einer religionswissenschaftlichen, philosophischen und im besonderen Masse esoterischen Bibliothek, Vol. 2 (Gaggenau: H. Frietsch Verlag, 2016), pp. 35-70.

[47] Pawel Maciejko. “Sabbatian Charlatans: the first Jewish cosmopolitans.” European Review of History—Revue europe´enne d’histoire, Vol. 17, No. 3 (June 2010), p. 364.

[48] Pawel Maciejko. “A Portrait of the Kabbalist as a Young Man,” pp. 521-576.

[49] Ibid., p. 570.

[50] Mcintosh. Rose Cross and the Age of Reason, p. 163; Jacob Katz. Jews and Freemasons in Europe 1723-1939.

[51] Godwin. The Theosophical Enlightenment, p. 121.

[52] Katz. Jews and Freemasons in Europe.

[53] Franz Joseph Molitor, cited in Gershom Scholem. Du Frankisme au Jacobisme (Paris: Le Seul Gallimard, 1981) p. 39.

[54] list przyjaciela poloka, do obywatela warszawskiego wyjawiajacy sekreta neofitow ([Warsaw]), 1970), reprinted in Eisenbach and Michalski (eds.), Materialy do dziejow Sejmu, 6:170; cited in Pawel Maciejko. The Mixed Multitude: Jacob Frank and the Frankist Movement, 1755-1816 (Jewish Culture and Contexts) (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011) p. 229.

[55] Mcintosh. Rose Cross and the Age of Reason, p. 168; Jacob Katz. Jews and Freemasonry in Europe (Harvard University Press, 1970).

[56] Scholem. Du Frankisme, p. 39; cited in Marsha Keith Schuchard. “Dr. Samuel Jacob Falk,” p. 220.

[57] A Historical Inquiry In Regard To The Grand Constitutions Of 1786 (1883).

[58] Levett Hanson. An Accurate Historical Account of All The Orders of Knighthood At Present Existing In Europe, 1 (J. White, 1802).

[59] Eugen Lennhoff, Oskar Posner & Dieter A. Binder. Internationales Freimaurerlexikon (F.A. Herbig, 2000), S. 135, S. 718f and S. 758f.

[60] Novak. Jacob Frank, p. 121.

[61] Marquis de Luchet. Essai sur la secte des Illumines (Paris, 1789)

[62]  Katz. Jews and Freemasonry in Europe, chapter III.

[63] Mcintosh. Rose Cross and the Age of Reason, p. 163.

[64] Antoine Faivre. “Asiatic Brethren.” In Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism, Wouter J. Hanegraaff, .ed (Leiden: Brill, 2006), p. 109.

[65] “Asiatic Brethren.” Antoine Faivre, p. 108.

[66] Cecilia Klercker (ed.). Hedvig Elisabeth Charlottas dagbok. Vol. VII 1800–1806. (Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt & Söners förlag), p. 504.

[67] “Carl Adolf Boheman.” Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon (Stockholm: Riksarkivet, 1925), p. 167

[68] Maciejko. “A Portrait of the Kabbalist as a Young Man,” pp. 521-576.

[69] Maciejko. The mixed multitude, pp. 224-225.

[70] Casanova. The History of My Life, 2: 195; Pawel Maciejko. The mixed multitude, pp. 222.

[71] Casanova. Briefwechsel, pp. 333-34; and Patrizi e avventurieri, pp. 416-17; Casanova. The History of My Life, 2: 195; Maciejko. The mixed multitude, pp. 223.

[72] Maciejko. The mixed multitude, pp. 222.

[73] Terry Melanson. “Roots of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.” Conspiracy Archive (July 28, 2015).

[74] P. G. M. Dickson (2007). “Count Karl von Zinzendorf’s ‘New Accountancy’: the Structure of Austrian Government Finance in Peace and War, 1781–1791.” International History Review. 29 (1), pp. 22–56.

[75] Matevž Košir. “About the Freemasons in Slovenia in the Wheel of History.” In The Secret of the Lodge. International Symposium Freemasonry in Central Europe, National Museum of Slovenia, Ljubljana (May 11, 2017)

[76] Melanson. “Roots of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.”

[77] Maciejko. The mixed multitude, pp. 224.

[78] Ibid.

[79] Erol Araf. “Mozart, Casanova and a Jewish Poet.” Canadian Jewish News (June 2, 2016).

[80] Benjamin Simkin (1992). “Mozart’s scatological disorder.” BMJ, 305, pp. 1563–7.

[81] Cited in David P. Schroeder. Mozart in Revolt: Strategies of Resistance, Mischief, and Deception (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), p. 127.

[82] Frank Pattie. “A Mesmer-Paradis Myth Dispelled.” The American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis. 22, 1 (July 1979), pp. 29–31.

[83] Andrew Steptoe. “Mozart, Mesmer and ‘Cosi Fan Tutte’” Music & Letters, 67, 3 (1986), pp. 248–255.

[84] Bruce Alan Brown. W. A. Mozart: Così fan tutte (Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 10.

[85] Melanson. Perfectibilists (Kindle Location 1257).

[86] Ibid. (Kindle Locations 5858-5860).

[87] Ibid. (Kindle Locations 5864-5867).

[88] Ibid. (Kindle Locations 9845-9847).

[89] Ibid. (Kindle Locations 5868-5870).

[90] Ibid. (Kindle Locations 1274-1275).

[91] Katherine Thomson. The Masonic Thread in Mozart (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1977), p. 14.

[92] Ibid. (Kindle Locations 5719-5720).

[93] Ibid. (Kindle Location 5720).

[94] Nicholas Till. Mozart and the Enlightenment: Truth, Virtue and Beauty in Mozart’s Operas (W. W. Norton & Company, 1995), p. 297.

[95] Katz. Jews and Freemasonry, cited in McIntosh. Rose Cross and the Age of Reason, p. 166.

[96] Melanson. Perfectibilists (Kindle Locations 7172-7174).

[97] “Otto Heinrich von Gemmingen.” Epoche Napoleon. Retrieved from https://www.epoche-napoleon.net/bio/g/gemmingen.html

[98] Ibid.

[99] Ibid. (Kindle Locations 1432-1433).

[100] Ibid. (Kindle Location 5720).

[101] “Maximilian Von Habsburg.” The Order of the Fleur de Lys. Retrieved from https://www.orderofthefleurdelys.org.uk/order-history/maximilian-von-hapsburg/

[102] Heribert Rau. Mozart: A Biographical Romance (Leypoldt & Holt, 1868), p. 220.

[103] Melanson. Perfectibilists (Kindle Locations 8363-8366).

[104] Pawel Maciejko. “A Portrait of the Kabbalist as a Young Man: Count Joseph Carl Emmanuel Waldstein and His Retinue.” The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 106, No. 4 (Fall 2016), p. 568.

[105] Giuseppe Rausa. “Massoneria e scenari europei.” (www.giusepperausa.it)

[106] “Otto Heinrich von Gemmingen.” Epoche Napoleon. Retrieved from https://www.epoche-napoleon.net/bio/g/gemmingen.html

[107] Peter Clive. Beethoven and His World: A Biographical Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 367.

[108] March 24, 1781. John Irving. Mozart’s Piano Sonatas: Contexts, Sources, Style (Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 166.

[109] Nicholas Till. Mozart and the Enlightenment: Truth, Virtue and Beauty in Mozart’s Operas (W. W. Norton & Company, 1995), p. 297. Cited in Melanson. Perfectibilists (Kindle Locations 8359-8362).

Volume Two

1. The Elizabethan Age

2. The Great Conjunction

3. The Alchemical Wedding

4. The Rosicrucian Furore

5. The Invisible College

6. 1666

7. The Royal Society

8. America

9. Redemption Through Sin

10. Oriental Kabbalah

11. The Grand Lodge

12. The Illuminati

13. The Asiatic Brethren

14. The American Revolution

15. Haskalah

16. The Aryan Myth

17. The Carbonari

18. The American Civil War

19. God is Dead

20. Theosophy

21. Shambhala