6. The Alchemical Wedding

Lurianic Kabbalah

The Rosicrucian movement, which was influenced by the occult philosophies of John Dee and Francis Bacon, emerged between 1610 and 1615, when Johann Valentin Andreae (1586 – 1654) published his Rosicrucian manifestos, based on a combination of “Magia, Cabala, and Alchymia.” The Rosicrucian manifestos appeared around the same time that the German prince Frederick V of the Palatinate (1574 – 1610) began to be seen as the ideal incumbent to take the place of leader of the Protestant resistance against the Catholic Hapsburgs, to be achieved through his dynastic union with Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of the “Mason King,” James I of England. The perceived occult importance of their marriage was enshrined in a Rosicrucian tract called The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, published in 1616, which contains allusions to the Order of the Golden Fleece. The word “chymical” is an old form of “chemical’ and refers to alchemy, for which the “Sacred Marriage” was the goal.

Through the teachings of mystical Protestant theologian Jacob Boehme (1575 – 1624), the Rosicrucian movement was influenced by the messianic movement of the Kabbalah of Isaac Luria, a leading rabbi and Jewish mystic of the community of Safed in the Galilee region of Ottoman Syria, now Israel.[1] According to Gershom Scholem, the popular reception of messianism amongst the Jews of the Middle Ages was prepared by the tragedy of the expulsion from Spain. Following the Expulsion, Jews migrated not only to the New World, but many other parts of the world as well, such North Africa, or, like Abarbanel, to the Italian states, where members of his family became closely associated with the de Medicis. Others found their way to Northern Europe, including England and Flanders, contributing to the “Northern Renaissance,” especially the city of Amsterdam, which became known as the “Dutch Jerusalem.” Those who fared best settled in the territories of the Ottoman Empire, such North Africa, Turkey, and the Balkans, at the invitation of the sultan. His successor, Suleiman the Magnificent (1494 – 1566), exclaimed on one occasion, referring to King Ferdinand of Spain: “You call him king who impoverishes his states to enrich mine?” Suleiman commented to the ambassador sent by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500 – 1558), who marveled that “the Jews had been thrown out of Castile, which was to throw away wealth.”[2]

As detailed by 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.” [3] 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.[4]

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.

Order of the Swan

The symbol of the five-petaled rose, which also became the personal symbol of Martin Luther, whose chief supporters also claimed descent from the Knight of the Swan, was later adopted by the Rosicrucians. Luther escaped to Wartburg castle, site of Elizabeth of Hungary’s Miracle of the Roses, and according to von Eschenbach, the Grail castle Munsalvaesche, visited by the Knight Swan Lohengrin. There, Luther devoted his time to translating the New Testament from Greek into German and other polemical writings. The symbol of the swan, which became associated with Luther, derives from a prophecy reportedly made by the heretic Jan Hus, the founder of the Hussite movement—who was supported by Barbara of Cilli, who founded the Order of the Dragon with her husband, Emperor Sigismund—whose teachings had a strong influence on Luther.[5]

The name “Hus,” means “goose” in Bohemian, now called Czech, and he was a century later referenced as a “Bohemian goose” in a dream given to Frederick III, Elector of Saxony (1463 – 1525), one of the most powerful early defenders of Martin Luther, hiding him at Wartburg Castle. Frederick III was the son of Ernest, Elector of Saxony (1441 – 1486), founder of the Ernestine branch of the House of Wettin, which like the houses of Savoy, Gonzaga, Cleves, Lorraine and Montferrat, all began their ascent after they were recognized by Emperor Sigismund. In The Book of Abramelin, Abraham of Worms boasted of using Kabbalistic magic to summon 2000 “artificial cavalry” to support Ernest’s grandfather, Frederick I, Elector of Saxony (1370 – 1428), an ally of Emperor Sigismund, in his war against the Hussites. For his victory at the Battle of Brüx in 1421, Frederick I received the Saxon Electorate from Sigismund.

Frederick III the Wise appointed Luther and Philipp Melanchthon to the University of Wittenberg, which he had established in 1502. In his time at Wittenberg, Melanchthon and his son-in-law Caspar Peucer (1525 – 1602) were of the main promoters of the astrological department.[6] Peucer and Melanchton collaborated closely on a book about divination, indicating that magic, incarnations and other practices that appeal to the devil are illicit, while three are permitted. These are oracles, divination from natural causes and, most importantly, astrology.[7] In a few instances, Peucer worked with the Danish astronomer and alchemist Tycho Brahe—a friend of John Dee.[8]

Frederick III’s brother, John, Elector of Saxony (1468 – 1532), is known for organizing the Lutheran Church in the Electorate of Saxony with Luther’s help. John helped Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse (1504 – 1567), who claimed descent from Elizabeth of Hungary, to found the League of Gotha. Philip I also founded the Schmalkaldic League with John’s son, John Frederick I, Elector of Saxony (1503 – 1554), who commissioned the Luther Rose, which became Luther’s personal seal. Frederick III’s court painter, Lucas Cranach the Elder, a close friend of Luther’s, signed his works with his initials until 1508, when John Frederick I, Frederick III’s nephew, granted him the use of the serpent with bat wings, which bears a red crown on the head and holds a ring studded with a ruby in its mouth, an evident alchemical symbol.[9]

John Frederick I was married to Sibylle of Cleves, from a family who like the houses of Brabant and Brandenburg, also laid particular claims as the descendants of the Knight Swan.[10] Sibylle was the great-granddaughter of Albert III Achilles (1414 – 1486), Elector of Brandenburg, who was a member of the Order of the Swan, founded by his brother, Frederick II, Elector of Brandenburg (1413 – 1471. Their brother was John, Margrave “the Alchemist” of Brandenburg-Kulmbach (1406 – 1464). Albert III married Anna of Saxony, the granddaughter of Ernest, Duke of Austria (1377 – 10 June 1424) of the House of Habsburg and a member of the Order of the Dragon. Albert’s son, Frederick I, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1460 – 1536), married Sophia of Poland, the sister of Sigismund I the Old (1467 – 1548), the grandson of Sigismund of Luxembourg.

Sigismund I the Old married Bona Sforza, the great-granddaughter of Francesco I Sforza. Bona’s father, was Gian Galeazzo Sforza (1469 – 1494), was a first cousin of Charles III, Duke of Savoy, grandfather of Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy, whose birth was prophesied by Nostradamus. Bona’s mother, Isabella of Naples, the granddaughter of Alfonso V of Aragon (1396 – 1458), a member of the Order of the Dragon. At Gian and Isabella’s wedding, a masque or operetta was held, entitled Il Paradiso, with words by Isabella’s cousin, Bernardo Bellincioni (1452 – 1492), and sets and costumes by Leonardo da Vinci. Bellincioni, who had begun his career in the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent in Florence, was also a court poet of Gian’s uncle, Ludovico Sforza. Sigismund and Bona’s son, Sigismund II Augustus married Barbara Radziwiłł who was accused of promiscuity and witchcraft. Sigismund I’s daughter Anna Jagiellon married Stephen Bathory (1533 – 1586), a sponsor of the famous English sorcerer John Dee, and uncle of Elizabeth Bathory, known as the “Blood Countess,” and the worst female serial killer in history, who bathed in the blood of virgins.

Frederick I son, and Anna of Cleves’ cousin, was Albert, Duke of Prussia (1490 – 1568), Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, founder of the Duchy of Prussia. In 1522, Albert journeyed to Wittenberg, where he was advised by Martin Luther to abandon the rules of his order, to marry, and to convert Prussia into a hereditary duchy for himself. Luther worked to spread his teaching among the Prussians, while Albert's brother George presented the plan to their uncle, Sigismund I the Old.[11] Albert converted to Lutheranism and, with the consent of Sigismund, turned the State of the Teutonic Order into the first protestant state, Duchy of Prussia, according to the Treaty of Kraków, which was sealed by the Prussian Homage in Kraków in 1525. When Albert died in 1568, his teenage son Albert Frederick (1553 – 1618) inherited the duchy. This Order of the Swan disappeared when the house of Brandenburg adopted Protestantism in 1525, but the marriage of Albert Frederick to Mary Eleanor, sister and heir of John William, duke of Cleves, who died in 1609, introduced the Hohenzollerns a new and more prestigious descent from the Swan Knight, from whom would descend the later famous Kings of Prussia.[12]

House of Ascania

The manifestos appeared around the same time that the German prince Frederick V of the Palatinate began to be seen as the ideal incumbent to take the place of leader of the Protestant resistance against the Catholic Hapsburgs, to be achieved through his dynastic union with Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James I of England, the “Mason King,” to Frederick V of the Palatinate (1574 – 1610). As the daughter of a reigning monarch, the hand of the young Elizabeth was seen as a highly desired prize. Many suitors from Europe’s most powerful families offered their sons in marriage, including Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, Frederic Ulric, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Prince Maurice of Orange, Otto, Hereditary Prince of Hesse-Kassel, son of Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy, the son of Charles I Emmanuel, whose birth was prophesied by Nostradamus, and Emperor Philip III of Spain, Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece.

Frederick V, the man chosen, was of undeniably high lineage, belonging to a heritage of most of those families combined. Frederick V was the great-grandson of Philip I Landgrave of Hesse married Christine of Saxony, the daughter of Sophia of Poland’s sister Barbara Jagiellon, the sister of Sophia of Poland. Their daughter, Anna of Saxony, married William the Silent (1533 – 1584), the main leader of the Dutch Revolt against the Spanish Habsburgs that set off the Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648) and resulted in the formal independence of the United Provinces in 1581. William was encouraged to revolt against Spain, a major adversary of the Ottoman Empire, by the Portuguese Marrano, Joseph Nasi (1524 – 1579). Nasi was member of the influential Benveniste, who traced their descent back to Narbonne where they were in contact with the Kalonymous, who traced their descent from Rabbi Makhir and shared the title of Nasi.[13] Nasi escaped to Antwerp and founded a banking house, before finally deciding to settle in a Muslim land. After two troubled years in Venice, Nasi left for Constantinople in 1554, where he became an influential figure in the Ottoman Empire during the rules of both Sultan Suleiman I and his son Selim II.

In around 1563, Joseph Nasi secured permission from Sultan Selim II to acquire Tiberias in Israel to create a Jewish city-state and encourage industry there. The scheme to restore Tiberias had messianic significance as there was a tradition that the Messiah would appear there. Already while he was still a nominal Christian in Italy, Nasi had proposed the idea of a Jewish commonwealth that would be a refuge for persecuted Jews.[14] In 1566 when Selim ascended the throne, Nasi was made duke of Naxos. He had conquered Cyprus for the sultan. Nasi’s influence was so great that foreign powers often negotiated through him for concessions which they sought from the sultan. Thus, the emperor of Germany, Maximilian II, William of Orange, Sigismund August II, King of Poland, all conferred with him on political matters.[15] William the Silent’s daughter by another marriage, Louise Juliana of Nassau, married Frederick IV, Elector Palatine (1574 – 1610), the grandson of Philip I of Hesse, and the father of Frederick V.

Both manifestos were published by an official printer to Maurice of Hesse-Kassel (1572 – 1632), Frederick V’s cousin, and one of Elizabeth’s early suitors. Maurice’s court in Kassel was a flourishing center for alchemy and Paracelsian medicine, including occultists such as Michael Maier. The Rosicrucian movement was centered around the perceived importance of the marriage of Maurice’s friend Frederick V and Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of the “Mason King,” King James I of England, celebrated in Andreae’s work, the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, published in 1616. The word “chymical” is an old form of “chemical’ and refers to alchemy, for which the “Sacred Marriage” was the goal. Elaborate celebrations were organized by Francis Bacon. Maier composed a wedding song for the marriage, and in 1619 he became Maurice’s physician.

The chief advisor to Frederick V of the Palatinate, and architect of the political agenda of the Rosicrucian movement, was Christian of Anhalt (1568 –1630), of the House of Ascania, also known as the House of Anhalt, who succeed the House of Welf as Dukes of Saxony. The House of Anhalt traced their descent to Ascanius, legendary king of Alba Longa and the son of the Trojan hero Aeneas, whom they equated with Ashkenaz, grandson of Japhet, the son of Noah, whose descendants were reputed to have migrated from the marches of Ascania in Bithynia, in northwest of Asia Minor, and at last to have settled in Germany.[16]

The legend of Rosenkreutz may have been inspired by Balthasar Walther (1558 – c. 1631) who served as personal physician to Christian of Anhalt’s brother, Prince August of Anhalt-Plötzkau (1575 – 1653), whose court was a center for occult, alchemical and Rosicrucian thought during the opening decades of the seventeenth century. Walther’s travels to the Middle transmitted the knowledge of the Kabbalah of Isaac Luria to his pupil Jacob Boehme.[17] 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, father of Vlad the Impaler, lather popularized as Dracula, who was made a member of the Order of the Dragon by Emperor Sigismund. Walther’s collaborator Paul Nagel transcribed a copy of the Fama, which also contains Kabbalistic explications of the Book of Revelation and Daniel. In 1611, Prince August of Anhalt-Plötzkau proposed publishing the two Rosicrucian manifestos together, but was unable to locate a copy of Confessio.[18]

Winter Lion

In 1618, the largely Protestant estates of Bohemia rebelled against their Catholic King Ferdinand, triggering the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War. Expecting that King James would come to their aid, in 1619, the Rosicrucians granted the throne of Bohemia to Frederick in direct opposition to the Catholic Habsburg rulers. Christian of Anhalt was appointed to command the Protestant forces to defend Bohemia against Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II—a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece—and his allies when that country’s nobles elected Frederick as their king in 1619. However, King James opposed the takeover of Bohemia, and Frederick’s allies in the Protestant Union failed to support him militarily by signing the Treaty of Ulm in 1620. Frederick’s brief reign as King of Bohemia ended with his defeat at the Battle of White Mountain in the same year. Imperial forces invaded the Palatinate and Frederick had to flee to Holland in 1622, where he lived the rest of his life in exile with Elizabeth and their children, mostly at The Hague, and died in Mainz in 1632. For his short reign of a single winter, Frederick is often nicknamed the “Winter King.” Frederick’s supporters issued pamphlets in response, calling him the Winter Lion, or otherwise still, the Summer Lion.[19]

In the years following the outbreak of the Thirty Years War in 1618, the combination of Hapsburg power with Catholic Counter Reformation came near to complete victory. However, after ten years of war, the victories of Gustavus Adolphus (1594 – 1632), King of Sweden, of the House of Vasa, saved the Protestant cause. Through his mother, Catherine Jagiellon, Gustavus Adolphus was the grandson of Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse. Gustavus Adolphus married Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg, the granddaughter of Albert, Duke of Prussia, Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, and founder of the Duchy of Prussia. Gustavus Adolphus’s mother was Christina of Holstein-Gottorp, whose mother, Christine of Hesse, was the daughter of Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse and his spouse Christine of Saxony. Christine of Hesse was also the aunt of Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, Frederick V’s close friend.

When Frederick V died in 1632, his widow, the Queen of Bohemia, Elizabeth Stuart, living in refuge in The Hague, represented for sympathizers in England the policy of support for Protestant Europe which, in their opinion, should have been the policy of James I towards his daughter and son-in-law.[20] Of thirteen children and eldest daughter of Frederick V and Elisabeth Stuart was Elisabeth, Princess of Bohemia (1618 – 1680). It is reported that her intellectual accomplishments earned her the nickname “La Greque” from her siblings, and might well have been tutored by Constantijn Huygens.[21] French philosopher René Descartes (1596 –1650)—who had become interested in the Rosicrucian movement—dedicated his Principles of Philosophy to her, and wrote his Passions of the Soul at her request. She seems to have been involved in negotiations around the Treaty of Westphalia and in efforts to restore the English monarchy after the English civil war.

Gothic Kabbalah

While Frederick V was seen by the Rosicrucians as the Winter Lion, Gustavus Adolphus, a second cousin of Frederick V, was seen as the incarnation of “the Lion of the North,” or as he is called in German Der Löwe aus Mitternacht (“The Lion of Midnight”). This image of an all-conquering mystical hero descending from the North to inflict God’s wrath on his opponents had roots in Old Testament prophecy, foretold by Jeremiah, with new life breathed into it in the sixteenth century through an apocalyptic vision attributed to Paracelsus and Tycho Brahe that foresaw the northern hero laying low the eagle, the symbol of the Habsburgs and returning peace to the world after an era of unprecedented suffering and preparing the way for the second coming.[22]

The symbolism of the “Lion of the North,” was advanced for propaganda purposes by Gustavus’ renowned teacher, the Runic Swedish scholar and Rosicrucian, Johannes Bureus (1568-1652), who was in frequent contact with the German Kabbalist Abraham von Franckenberg (1593 – 1652), a close friend and biographer of Balthasar Walther, who inspired the legend of Christian Rosenkreutz.[23] Bureus highlighted the affinities among the early Rosicrucians to the doctrine of a universal human restitution set out by Guillaume Postel. Bureus was inspired by Postel’s ideas on a revival of Celtic Europe with an accompanying revolution of arts and sciences, to which he added ideas on the northern spread of the Hyperborean peoples. Bureus’ copy of Postel’s Panthenousia is marked up with comments, especially in the sections on Arabic and on a possible concordance between the Hebrews, the Christians, and the Ismailis. Postel's scheme employed rhetoric about the redemptive role to be played for mankind by the sons of Japheth, particularly Gomer and his youngest brother Ashkenaz.[24]

For his diary, Bureus used the yearly almanacs of Finnish astronomer Sigfrid Aronius Forsius, who wrote that an age of great reform was soon to commence. Forsius appealed to the tradition of Arabic astrology, to the medieval authors Abu Ma’shar, Abraham the Jew, and John of Seville.[25] In June 1619, the ecclesiastical council in Uppsala seized Forsius’ controversial tract, which referred to the comet in the Swan of 1602, and a great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn appeared in Serpentario in 1603/04. Forsius explained that these signs reproduced the saying made popular during the radical reformation, “after the burning of the Goose there will follow a Swan,” a saying fulfilled by the burning of the founder of the Moravian Brethren, Johan Hus (meaning goose) in 1417 and by Luther a hundred years later. While Hus, the founder of the Hussites who were to become the Moravian Brethren, was the second Noah, Luther was the third Elijah.[26]

Addressing himself to the Rosicrucians, Bureus proclaimed in his FaMa e sCanzIa reDUX (1616) that the north belonged to a distinct Hyperborean tradition that was preserved in the Gothic-Scandinavian Runes. Bureus is primarily known as an exponent of early modern “Gothicism,” the idea that the ancient Goths of Scandinavia were the first rulers of Europe, and Sweden the true origin of Western culture. Influenced by the Renaissance notion of a prisca theologia, Bureus also claimed that all ancient knowledge originally stemmed from the Goths, who had taught the Greeks and the Romans. This idea was intimately tied to Bureus’ theory that the old Scandinavian alphabet, the runes, which constituted a “Gothic Cabala.”[27] In his Rosicrucian writings, Bureus advanced the idea of the ancient Goths as the original rulers of Europe, from Italy and Spain in the south to England in the north, which provided justification to Sweden’s political ambitions, a theory which was to remain the officially endorsed version of Sweden’s history until well into the eighteenth century.[28]

In 1646, Franckenberg listed Bureus among the great Christian Kabbalists of history, alongside Joachim of Fiore, Pico, Reuchlin, Agrippa, Giordano Bruno and Rosicrucians like Petrus Bongus, Julius Sperber, and Philip Ziegler. The list was appended to a new edition of Guillaume Postel’s Absconditomm a Constitutione Mundi Clavis, a mystical text on the seven ages presented by Franckenberg to the court of Wladislaus IV in Poland (1595 – 1648).[29] Wladislaus IV’s father was Sigismund III Vasa, the grandson of Sigismund I the Old, a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and Bona Sforza. Sigismund III’s mother Catherine Jagiellon was the sister of Sigismund II Augustus who Barbara Radziwiłł, who was accused of promiscuity and witchcraft, and the sister of Anna Jagiellon, who married Stephen Báthory, sponsor of John Dee and uncle of Elizabeth Báthory, the “Blood Countess.” Sigismund III’s father was John III of Sweden, whose brother Charles IX of Sweden, was the father of Gustavus Adolphus (1594 – 1632).

 

Minerva of the North

Bureus’ manuscript Adulruna Rediviva, a first version of which was given to Gustav Adolphus on his assumption to the Swedish throne in 1611, was given as a gift to his daughter, Queen Christina (1626 – 1689) in 1643. Christina’s grandmother, Christine of Hesse, was the great-granddaughter of Philip I Landgrave of Hesse. Her Grandfather, Charles IX of Sweden, had first been married to Maria of the Palatinate, whose nephew was of Frederick V of the Palatinate of the Alchemical Wedding. Known as the “Minerva of the North,” Christina is remembered as one of the most learned women of the seventeenth century.[30]

As detailed by Susanna Åkerman, Christina’s library contained approximately 4500 printed books and 2200 manuscripts on the subjects of Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, alchemy, Kabbalah and prophetic works. Christina had been approached by the alchemist Johannes Franck (1590 – 1661), a professor of pharmacology at Uppsala University, where he was part of the introduction of “the doctrines of Theophrastus and Trismegistos.” The Polish adept Michael Sendivogius, explained Åkerman, had a definite Influence in Christina’s Sweden through Franck’s alchemical allegory Colloquium with Mountain Gods (1651). It describes the genealogy of a royal family that finally bring forth the daughter Aurelia áurea, the perfect gold. Franck saw Christina’s reign the fulfillment the Polish adept Michael Sendivogius’ prophecy of a new alchemical monarchy in the North, and Paracelsus’ prophecy concerning the alchemical adept Elias Artista.[31]

In 1649, Christina invited Descartes to Stockholm to start an academy. According to his biographer Baillet, one of Descartes’ reasons for accepting the invitation was to plead on behalf of Elizabeth of Bohemia, the daughter of Elizabeth Stuart and Frederick V of the Palatinate, at the Swedish court. The plan failed however, because Descartes and Queen Christina turned out to ultimately dislike one another. Finally, the cold climate led Descartes to catch a chill that turned into pneumonia and killed him.[32]

Christina was in secret contact with the Roman Jesuit and polymath Athanasius Kircher (1602 – 1680). He was taught Hebrew by a rabbi in addition to his studies at school.[33] Kircher cited as his sources Chaldean astrology, Hebrew Kabbalah, Greek myth, Pythagorean mathematics, Arabian alchemy and Latin philology. In 1646, von Franckenberg had also sent a copy of Bureus’ FaMa e sCanzIa reDUX to Kircher.[34]

Sun King

Andreae was influenced by Tommaso Campanella (1568 – 1639), who was, like Giordano Bruno, a revolutionary ex-Dominican friar. In 1600, he led a revolt in southern Italy against the Spanish occupying powers. Campanella was however captured, tortured, and imprisoned for most of the rest of his life in the castle at Naples, where he was visited by Tobias Adami and Wilhelm Wense, both close friends of Andreae. While in prison, he wrote his City of the Sun, which was influenced by the Asclepius and the Picatrix, and profoundly influenced Andreae.[35] Campanella’s aim was to establish a society based on the community of goods and wives, on the basis of the prophecies of Joachim of Fiore and his own astrological observations, by which he foresaw the advent of the Age of the Spirit in the year 1600.[36] In 1634, a new conspiracy in Calabria, led by one of his followers, forced Campanella to flee to France, where he was received at the court of Louis XIII, where he was protected by Cardinal Richelieu. Campanella prophesied at court that Louis XIV’s infant son, Louis XIV of France (1638 – 1715), le Roi Soleil (“the Sun King”), would build the Egyptian “City of the Sun.”[37]

King Louis XIII surrounded himself with a variety of significant political, military, and cultural figures, such as Louis, Grand Condé (1621 – 1686), the Jesuit-educated Cardinal Mazarin (1602 – 1661), and his Chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu (1585 – 1642), Abbot of Cluny. After Henry IV was assassinated in 1610, Marie was confirmed as Regent on behalf of her son and new King, Louis IV’s father, the eight-year-old Louis XIII (1601 – 1643). Louis XIII married Anne of Austria, the daughter of Philip III of Spain, Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Louis XIII’ sister, Henrietta Maria married Charles I of England, the son of King James. Louis XIII’s other sister, Christine Marie, married Victor Amadeus I of Savoy, the son of Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy. Christine Marie rebuilt Palazzo Madama in Turin following the advice of master alchemists.[38] Louis XIII’s wife was Anne of Austria, the daughter of Philip III of Spain, Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece.

Louis II de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, who was known as le Grand Condé for his military exploits, was a French general and the most illustrious member of the Condé branch of the House of Bourbon, that was originally assumed around 1557 by the French Protestant leader Louis de Bourbon (1530 – 1569), uncle of Henry IV of France, the husband of Marie de Medici. In 1610, Marie de Medici gave the Hôtel de Condé in Paris to the Grand Condé’s father, Henri as part of a recompense for his agreeing to marry Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency, who was being pursued by her husband Henry IV. Charlotte was the daughter of Henri de Montmorency (1534 – 1614), a purported Grand Master of the Order of the Temple, which claimed direct descent from the Templars, according to the Larmenius Charter. Henri was succeeded as Grand Master by Charles de Valois, Duke of Angoulême (1573 – 1650), an illegitimate son of Charles IX of France. Charles de Valois was inducted into the Knights of Malta, and inherited large estates from his paternal grandmother Catherine de Medici. Th Grand Condé’s aunt, Éléonore de Bourbon, married Philip William, Prince of Orange (1554 – 1618), the son of William the Silent and Anna of Egmond.

The Grand Condé’s brother, Armand, Prince of Conti, married Anne Marie Martinozzi, the sister of Queen Christina’s ally Cardinal Mazarin, successor to Cardinal Richelieu as chief minister to Louis XIII. Richelieu, also known by the sobriquet l'Éminence rouge (“the Red Eminence”), advanced politically by faithfully serving the most powerful minister in the kingdom, Concino Concini, favorite of Marie de Medici, and husband of the witch Leonora Dori. Like Concini, Richelieu was one of Marie’s closest advisors. In 1616, Richelieu was made Secretary of State, and was given responsibility for foreign affairs. Cardinal Richelieu sought to consolidate royal power and crush domestic factions. By restraining the power of the nobility, he transformed France into a strong, centralized state. His chief foreign policy objective was to check the power of the Austro-Spanish Habsburg dynasty, and to ensure French dominance in the Thirty Years’ War that engulfed Europe. Although he was a cardinal, he did not hesitate to make alliances with Protestant rulers in an attempt to achieve his goals.

Campanella’s last work was a poem celebrating the birth of the future Louis XIV, Ecloga in portentosam Delphini nativitatem. The third version of Campanella’s Civitas Solis, published in France in 1637, adapted the Sun City with Richelieu’s ambitions for the French Monarchy in mind. In the dedication to Richelieu of his De sensu rerum et magia, Campanella appeals to the cardinal to build the City of the Sun. Richelieu did not receive the Rosicrucians, but when eleven years later Campanella came to Paris he had the powerful cardinal’s support.[39] Mismanagement of the kingdom and ceaseless political intrigues by Marie and her Italian favorites led the young king to take power in 1617 by exiling his mother and executing her followers, including Concino Concini.

Cardinal Mazarin succeeded his mentor, Cardinal Richelieu. Mazarin’s father, Pietro Mazzarino (1576 – 1654), had moved to Rome from Sicily in 1590 to become a chamberlain in the family of Filippo I Colonna (1578 – 1639), the Grand Constable of Naples, a nephew of Carlo Borromeo and grand-nephew of Gian Giacomo Medici (1554 – 1618), and a bodyguard to Francesco II Sforza, and a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The Colonna, along with the Sforza, were sponsors of the artist Caravaggio, including Costanza Colonna, the widow of Francesco I Sforza di Caravaggio (1550 – 1583). Filippo I offered Caravaggio asylum as well.[40] Mazarin served as the chief minister to the kings of France Louis XIII and Louis XIV from 1642 until his death in 1661.

Following Richelieu’s death in 1642, Mazarin took his place as first minister, and after the death of Louis XIII in 1643, he acted as the head of the government for Anne of Austria, the regent for the young Louis XIV, and was also made responsible for the king’s education. Louis XIV reigned over a period of unprecedented prosperity in which France became the dominant power in Europe and a leader in the arts and sciences. An adherent of the concept of the divine right of kings, Louis continued his predecessors’ work of creating a centralized state governed from Paris, the capital. His most famous quote is arguably L’Etat, c’est moi (“I am the State”). In 1682, he moved the royal Court to the Palace of Versailles, the defining symbol of his power and influence in Europe. At the start of his reign, before turning to more political allegories, Louis XIV chose the sun as his royal insignia. The sun is the symbol of Apollo, god of peace and the arts. The Palace of Versailles is replete with representations and allegorical allusions to the sun god, and there was a famous ballet where he performed as Apollo.

The Grand Condé’s son, Henri Jules, Prince of Condé (1643 – 1709), married Anne Henriette of Bavaria, the daughter of Edward, Count Palatine of Simmern—the son of Frederick V of the Palatinate and Elizabeth Stuart—and Anna Gonzaga, making her a cousin of George I of England. Their son, Louis III, Prince of Condé (1668 – 1710), married Louise Françoise, the daughter of Louis XIV and his mistress Madame de Montespan (1640 – 1707).  Montespan was involved in a scandal known as L’affaire des poisons (“Affair of the Poisons”), which took place between 1677 and 1682, when Catherine Monvoisin, known as La Voisin, and the priest Étienne Guibourg performed Black Masses for human sacrifice for her.[41] Authorities rounded up a number of fortune tellers and alchemists who were suspected of selling divinations, séances, aphrodisiacs, and “inheritance powders,” a euphemism for poison. Some confessed under torture and provided authorities lists of their clients. La Voisin was arrested in 1679 and implicated several important courtiers, including Olympia Mancini, the Countess of Soissons, her sister, the Duchess of Bouillon, François Henri de Montmorency, Duke of Luxembourg and Madame de Montespan. La Voisin claimed that the Marquise bought aphrodisiacs and that she performed black masses with her in order to keep the king’s favor over rival lovers. The rituals were a mockery of the Catholic Mass, featuring the Marquise lying nude as an altar, with the chalice on her bare stomach, and holding a black candle in each of her outstretched arms. The witch and the Marquise would call on the devil (Astaroth and Asmodeus), and pray to him for the King’s love. They sacrificed a newborn by slitting its throat with a knife. The baby’s body was crushed, and the drained blood and mashed bones were used in the mixture. Louis’ food was tainted in this way for almost thirteen years, until La Voisin was captured after a police investigation where they uncovered the remains of 2,500 infants in her garden.[42] It was alleged that La Voisin paid prostitutes for their infants for use in the rituals.[43]


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

[2] Joseph Pérez. Historia de una tragedia. La expulsión de los judíos de España (Barcelona: Crítica 2013), p. 116.

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

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

[5] Heiko Augustinus Oberman & Walliser-Schwarzbart. Luther: Man Between God and the Devil (Yale University Press, 2006).

[6] Rienk Vermij. “A Science of Signs. Aristotelian Meteorology in Reformation Germany.” Early Science and Medicine, 15, 6 (2010), pp. 648–674.

[7] Ibid, p. 656.

[8] Adam Mosley. “Peucer, Caspar,” Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers (New York: Springer, 2014), pp. 1697–1698.

[9] Helmut Nickel. “‘The Judgment of Paris’ by Lucas Cranach the Elder: Nature, Allegory, and Alchemy.” Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 16 (1981), pp. 127 n. 21.

[10] Natalie Jayne Goodison. Introducing the Medieval Swan (University of Wales Press, 2022).

[11] Hugh Chisholm, ed. “Albert.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 1 (11th ed.). (Cambridge University Press, 1911), p. 497.

[12] Anthony R. Wagner. “IV.—The Swan Badge and the Swan Knight.” Archaeologia, 97 (1959), p. 133.

[13] Isaac Broydé & Richard Gottheil. “Kalonymus ben Todros.” Jewish Encyclopedia.

[14] Norman A. Stillman. Sephardi Religious Responses to Modernity (London, Routledge, 1995), p. 104.

[15] Graetz. History of the Jews (Eng. trans.), vol. iv. chs. xvi.- xvii.; Jewish Encyclopedia, ix. 172. (I. A.)

[16] Edward M. Pierce. The Cottage Cyclopedia of History and Biography (Case, Lockwood, 1868), p. 55.

[17] Penman. “A Second Christian Rosencreuz?” p. 162.

[18] Donald R. Dickson. “Johann Valentin Andreae's Utopian Brotherhoods.” Renaissance Quarterly Vol. 49, No. 4 (Winter, 1996), pp. 760-802.

[19] Yates. Rosicrucian Enlightenment, p. 59.

[20] Ibib., p. 221.

[21] Lisa Shapiro. “Elisabeth, Princess of Bohemia.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/elisabeth-bohemia

[22] Daniel Riches. “Gustavus Adolphus.” Dictionary of Luther and the Lutheran Traditions (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2017).

[23] See Penman, “A Second Christian Rosencreuz?” p. 163.

[24] Åkerman. Rose Cross over the Baltic, p. 203.

[25] Ibid., p. 127.

[26] Ibid., p. 126-127.

[27] Ibid., p. 505.

[28] Håkan Håkansson. “Alchemy of the Ancient Goths: Johannes Bureus’ Search for the Lost Wisdom of Scandinavia.” Early Science and Medicine 17 (2012), p. 502.

[29] Ibid., p. 63.

[30] Ruth Stephan. “Christina, Queen of Sweden.” Encyclopedia Britannica.

[31] Susanna Ákerman. “Sendivogius in Sweden: Elias Artista and the Fratres roris cocti.” Aries - Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism, 14 (2014), p. 62.

[32] Yates. Rosicrucian Enlightenment, p. 155.

[33] John Edward Fletcher. A Study of the Life and Works of Athanasius Kircher, ‘Germanus Incredibilis’: With a Selection of His Unpublished Correspondence and an Annotated Translation of His Autobiography (Leiden: Brill, 2011).

[34] Susanna Åkerman. “Queen Christina’s Esoteric Interests as a Background to Her Platonic Academies.” Western Esotericism. Vol 20 (2008), p. 22.

[35] Yates. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, pp. 232-233, 370; Moshe Idel. Kabbalah in Italy, 1280-1510: A Survey (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011).

[36] Corrado Claverini. “Tommaso Campanella e Gioacchino da Fiore. "Riaprire il conflitto" a partire dal pensiero utopico e apocalittico.” Giornale Critico di Storia delle Idee, 11, 2014 (in Italian).

[37] Lenoble, op. cit., p. 31. On Descartes and the Rosicrucians.

[38] Diana Zahuranec. “Turin Legends: Royal Alchemy.” (August 23, 2015). Retrieved from https://dianazahuranec.com/2015/08/23/turin-legends-royal-alchemy/

[39] Yates. Rosicrucian Enlightenment, 446

[40] Rodolfo Papa. Caravaggio (Firenze, Giunti, 2002), p. 130.

[41] Joscelyn Godwin. The Theosophical Enlightenment, (State University of New York Press, 1994), p. 101.

[42] Eleanor Herman. Sex with kings: 500 years of adultery, power, rivalry, and revenge (New York: Morrow, 2004), pp. 113.

[43] Montague Summers. Geography of Witchcraft (1927; reprint Kessinger Publishing, 2003).

Zionism