CHAPTER VI
THE GERMAN ILLUMINATI
GERMANY is the land of metaphysical mysticism and phantoms. A phantom itself of the old Roman Empire, it seems always to invoke the mighty shade of Hermann, consecrating in his honour the simulacrum of the captive eagles of Varus. The patriotism of young Germany is invariably that of the Germans in elder days. They have no thought of invading the laughing land of Italy; they accept the situation, as it stands, simply as a matter of revenge; but they would die a thousand times in the defence of their hearths and homes. They love their old castles, their old legends of the banks of the Rhine; they read with the uttermost patience the darksome treatises of their philosophy; they behold in the fogs of their sky and in the smoke of their pipes a thousand things inexpressible, by which they are initiated into the marvels of the other world. Long before there was any question of mediums and their evocations in America and France, Prussia had its illuminati and seers, who had habitual communications with the dead. At Berlin, a great noble built a house destined for evocations; King Frederick William was very curious about all such mysteries and was often immured in this house with an adept named Steinert. His experiences were so signal that a state of exhaustion supervened and he had to be restored with drops of some magical elixir analogous to that of Cagliostro. There is a secret correspondence belonging to the reign in question which is cited by the Marquis de Luchet in his work against the illuminati, and it contains a description of the dark chamber in which the evocations were performed. It was a square apartment, divided by a transparent veil; the magical furnace or altar of perfumes was erected in front of the veil and behind was a pedestal on which the spirit manifested. In his German work upon Magic, Eckartshausen describes the whole of the fantastic apparatus, being a system of machines and operations by which imagination was helped to create the phantoms desired, those who consulted the oracle being in a kind of waking somnambulism, comparable to the nervous excitement produced by opium or hasheesh. Those who are contented with the explanations given by the author just mentioned will regard the apparitions as magic-lantern effects, but there is more in it assuredly than this, while the magic lantern was only an accessory instrument in the business and one in no sense necessary for the production of the phenomenon. The images of persons once known on earth and now called up by thought do not appear as reflections of coloured glass; the pictures painted by a lantern do not speak, nor do they give answers to questions on matters of conscience. The King of Prussia, to whom the house belonged, was well acquainted with all the apparatus and was not therefore duped by jugglery, as the author of the secret correspondence pretends. The natural means paved the way for the prodigy but did not perform the latter; and the things which occurred were of a kind to surprise and disturb the most inveterate sceptic.1 Schroepfer, moreover, made use of no magic lantern and no veil, but those who came to him drank a kind of punch which he prepared; the forms which then appeared by his mediation were like those of the American Home—that is to say, partially materialised—and they caused a curious sensation in persons who sought to touch them. The experience was analogous to an electric disturbance, making the flesh creep, and there would have been no such sensation if people had moistened their hands before touching the apparition. Schroepfer acted in good faith, as does also the American Home; he believed in the reality of the spirits evoked by him, and he killed himself when he began to doubt it.2
Lavater, who also died violently, was utterly given over to evocations; he had two spirits at his command and belonged to a circle which cultivated catalepsy by the help of a harmonica. A magical chain was formed; a species of imbecile served as the spirit's interpreter and wrote under his control.3 This spirit gave out that he was a Jewish Kabalist who died before the birth of Jesus Christ, and the things which the medium recorded under this influence were worthy of Cahagnet's somnambulists.4 There was, for example, a revelation on sufferings in the life beyond, the communicating spirit stating that the soul of the Emperor Francis was compelled to calculate the number and exact condition of all the snail-shells which may exist and have existed in the whole universe. He made known also that the true names of the three Magi were not, as tradition tells us, Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar, but on the contrary Vrasa-pharmion, Melchisedek and Baleathrasaron; it is like reading the names written by our modern process of table-turning. The spirit also testified that he was himself doing penance for having threatened his father with the magical sword and that he felt disposed to make his friends a present of his portrait. Paper, paints and brushes were placed at his request behind a screen; he was then seen to design on the screen the outline of a small hand; a slight friction was audible on the paper; when it ceased everyone pressed forward and found rudely painted the likeness of an old Rabbi vested in black, with a white ruffle over the shoulders and a black skullcap, a costume altogether eccentric for a personage who was anterior to Jesus Christ. The painting, for the rest, was smudged and ill-drawn, resembling the work of a child amusing himself by daubing with eyes shut.1 The written instructions of the medium under the inspiration of Gablidone vie in their obscurity with the characteristics of German metaphysicians. “The attribute of majesty must not be conferred lightly,” says this authority, “for majesty is a derivation from Mage, seeing that the Magi were pontiffs and kings; they were therefore the primeval majesties. It is against the majesty of God that we offend when we sin mortally; we wound Him as Father, casting death into the sources of life. The fountain of the Father is light and life; that of the Son is blood and water; while the splendour of the Holy Spirit is fire and gold. We sin against the Father by falsehood, against the Son by hatred and against the Holy Spirit by debauchery, which is the work of death and destruction.” The good Lavater received these communications like oracles, and when he asked for some further illuminations Gablidone proceeded as follows: “The great revealer of mysteries shall come, and he will be born in the next century. The religion of the patriarchs will then be known on earth; it will explain to mankind the triad of Agion, Helion, Tetragrammaton; and the Saviour whose body is girt with a triangle shall be shewn on the fourth step of the altar; the apex of the triangle will be red and the device of mystery thereon will be : Venite ad patres osphal. One of the auditors demanded the meaning of the last word, and the medium wrote as follows without other explanations: Alphos, M : Aphon, Eliphismatis. Certain interpreters have concluded that the magus whose advent was announced in the course of the nineteenth century would be named Maphon and would be the son of Eliphisma, but this reading may be somewhat speculative.
There is nothing more dangerous than mysticism, for the mania which it begets baffles every combination of human wisdom. It is ever the fools who upset the world, and that which great statesmen never foresee is the desperate work of a maniac. The architect of the temple of Diana at Ephesus promised himself eternal glory, but he counted without Ero-stratus. The Girondins did not foresee Marat. What is needed to alter the equilibrium of the world? asked Pascal, on the subject of Cromwell. The answer is, a speck of gravel formed by chance in the entrails of a man. So do the great events come about through causes which in themselves are nothing. When any temple of civilisation crashes down, it is always the work of a blind man, like Samson, who shakes the pillars thereof. Some wretched preacher, belonging to the dregs of the people, is suffering from insomnia and believes himself elected to deliver the world from antichrist. Accordingly he stabs Henry IV and reveals to France in its consternation the name of Ravaillac. The German thaumaturgists regarded Napoleon as the Apollyon mentioned in the Apocalypse and one of their neophytes, named Stabs, came forward to kill the military Atlas, who at the given moment was carrying on his shoulders a world snatched from the chaos of anarchy. But that magnetic influence which the Emperor called this star was more potent than the fanatical impulse of the German occult circles. Stabs could not or dared not strike; Napoleon himself questioned him; he admired his resolution and courage; but, as he understood his own greatness, he would not detract from the new Scevola by forgiving him; he shewed his estimation indeed by taking him seriously and allowing him to be shot.
Carl Sand, who killed Kotzebue, was also an unfortunate derelict child of mysticism, misled by the secret societies, in which vengeance was sworn upon daggers. Kotzebue may have deserved cudgelling, but the weapon of Sand reinstated and made him a martyr. It is indeed grand to perish as the enemy and victim of those who wreak vengeance by means of ambuscades and assassinations. The secret societies of Germany practised rites which were less or more comparable to those of Magic. In the brotherhood of Mopses, for example, the mysteries of the Sabbath and the secret reception of Templars were renewed in mitigated and almost humorous forms. The Baphometic Goat was replaced by a dog, as if Hermanubi? were substituted for Pan, or science for Nature—the latter being an equivalent change, since Nature is known solely by the intermediation of science. The two sexes were admitted by the Mopses, as was the case at the Sabbath; the reception was accompanied by barkings and grimaces, and, as among the Templars, the Neophyte was invited to take his choice between kissing the back parts of the devil, the Grand Master or the Mopse, which was a small image of cardboard, covered with silk, and representing a dog, called Mops in German. The salutation in question was the condition of reception and recalls that which was offered to the Goat of Mendes in the initiations of the Sabbath. The Mopses took no pledges other than on their word of honour, which is the most sacred of all oaths for self-respecting people. Their meetings were occasions for dancing and festivity—again like those of the Sabbath—except that the ladies were clothed, and did not hang live cats from their girdles or eat little children : it was altogether a civilised Sabbath.1
Magic had its epic in Germany and the Sabbath its great poet; the epic was the colossal drama of Faust—that completed Babel of human genius. Goethe was initiated into all mysteries of magical philosophy; in his youth he had even practised the ceremonial part. The result of his daring experiments was to produce in him, for the time being, a profound disgust with life and a strong inclination towards death. As a fact, he accomplished his suicide not by a literal act but in a book; he composed the romance of Werther, the fatal work which preaches death and has had so many proselytes; then, victorious over discouragement and disgust, and having entered the serene realms of peace and truth, he wrote Faust. It is a magnificent commentary on one of the most beautiful episodes in the Gospel—the parable of the prodigal son. It is initiation into sin by rebellious science, into suffering by sin, into expiation and harmonious science by suffering. Human genius, represented by Faust, employs as its lackey the spirit of evil, who aspires to become master; it exhausts quickly all the delight that is attributed by imagination to unlawful love; it goes through orgies of folly; then, drawn by the charm of sovereign beauty, it rises from the abyss of disillusion to the heights of abstraction and imperishable beauty. There Mephistopheles is at his ease no longer; the implacable laughter turns sad; Voltaire gives place to Chateaubriand. In proportion, as the light manifests the angel of Darkness writhes and tosses; he is bound by celestial angels; he admires them against his will; he loves, weeps and is conquered.
In the first part of the drama, we see Faust separated by violence from Marguerite; the heavenly voices cry that she is saved, even as she is being led to execution. But can that Faust be lost who is always loved by Marguerite? Is not his heart already espoused to heaven? The great work of redemption in virtue of solidarity moves on to its fulfilment. How should the victim ever be consoled for her sufferings, did she not convert her executioner? Is not forgiveness the revenge of the children of heaven? The love which has first reached the empyrean draws science after it by sympathy; Christianity uprises in its admirable synthesis. The new Eve has washed the mark from the forehead of Cain with the blood of Abel, and she weeps with joy over her two children, who hold her in their joint embrace. To make room for the extension of heaven, hell—which has become useless—ceases. The problem of evil has found its definitive solution, and good—alone necessary and alone triumphant—shall reign henceforth eternally.
Hereof is the glorious dream of the greatest of all poets, but the philosopher, by misfortune, forgets the laws of equilibrium; he would swallow up light in a shadowless splendour and motion in an absolute repose, which would signify cessation of life. So long as there is visible light there will be shadow in proportion therewith. Repose will never be happiness unless equilibrated by an analogous and contrary movement. So long as there shall be free benediction, blasphemy will remain possible; so long as heaven remains, a hell there will also be. It is the unchangeable law of Nature and the eternal will of that justice whose other name is God.
1 The work of De Luchet is quite worthless from the evidential standpoint, but the so-called correspondence is cited in a Note on pp. 182-186 of the essay. It appears that the House Magical had been sold to King Frederick William, but the person who assisted at the evocations is called un grand Seigneur, which may or may not veil the royal identity. Moreover, Steinert was the adept who compounded the “magical elixir”, and was pensioned on this account; but it is not stated that he was the magus of the ceremonial proceedings. I have been unable to check the recital of Eckartshausen, which is very difficult to meet with in England.
2 In the Secret Tradition in Freemasonry I have indicated that Schroepfer is, on the whole, rather likely to have possessed some psychic powers, which, notwithstanding his story, ran the usual course of imposture. As he practised evocation perpetually, his suicide can be accounted for owing to the conditions which supervened on this account. There seems no real reason to suppose that he killed himself because he doubted his powers; however, the question does not signify.
3 It is just to say that another side of Lavater is shewn in his Secret Journal of a Self-Observer, which is a very curious memorial—or human document, as it would be termed in our modern language of inexactitude. It contains no suggestion of evocations and dealings with Jewish Kabalists, in or out of the flesh.
4 Cahagnet is the author of the following works: Arcanes de la Vie Future, 3 vols., 1848-1854; Lumière des Morts, 1851; Magie Magnétique, 2nd Edition, 1858; Sanctuaire du Spiritualisme, 1850; Révélations d'outre Tombe, 1856.
1 This account is taken from Note XV, appended to the Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés, but the Marquis de Luchet depended on another writer, the tatter drawing from Lavater's Spiritus Familiaris Gablidone, published at Frankfort and Leipsic in 1787.
1 It is suggested by Clavel that when Charles VI suppressed Masonry in Austria, owing to a Bull ol Pope Clement XII, the brethren of certain Lodges instituted the Order of Mopses to fill the gap. See Histoire Pittoresque de la Francmaçonnerie, 3rd edition, 1844, p. 154. Ragon reproduces the opinion in his Manuel de l'Inité, 1861, p. 88.