INTRODUCTION
Seeking the Light in Darkness
The occult world of Germany, ancient and modern, has long been shrouded in a dense mist of secrecy and profound mystery. Deep within this secret world there is an order known as the Fraternitas Saturni (FS)—the Brotherhood of Saturn. This can without doubt be called Germany’s greatest secret lodge. The order is still the most active and important magical society in Germany today, but from its formal beginnings around 1926 until around 1970 it was almost totally secret. Only through a quirk of fate did the inner documents of the order slip into the hands of those who published them in Germany. This book coherently summarizes and presents the vast array of documents available in German concerning the FS. The reader is given a rare glimpse into the inner workings and secret rites of this occult lodge.
In exploring the present study, you will be able to begin to open the hidden way to the Saturnian sphere which, according to the FS, rules the so-called New Age. The Saturnian path of initiation—until now perceived only darkly, as if through a mist—will be revealed. You will be able to begin to work with the magical formulae of Saturnian magic for self-development as well as for more practical or concrete ends. I have known individuals primarily grounded in a variety of magical traditions who have used the Saturnian formulae found in this book to open the gateways to higher inspiration for themselves and for the groups in which they are working.
Despite its great significance, it is only in recent decades that the FS has become more widely known in the English-speaking world. Prior to this, the few popular accounts of the FS to be found consisted of fragmentary descriptions that emphasized the sensational, sex-magical aspects of the order’s lodge work or else its darker, more “Satanic” side.1 This is understandable in light of the fact that the FS is (or was) the most unabashedly Luciferian organization in the modern Western occult revival, and its practice of sexual occultism perhaps the most elaborately detailed of any such lodge. But the FS also opens the pathway to an age-old tradition of magic that influenced—possibly at a deep level—more well-known traditions of occultism in Britain and America, for example that of the Golden Dawn.
The FS represents a unique blend of astrological cosmology, neo-Gnostic daemonology, sexual occultism, and Freemasonic organizational principles. This grand synthesis was originally the vision of one man, the longtime Grand Master of the FS, Gregor A. Gregorius (= Eugen Grosche). Gregorius fostered a vibrant current of Thelemic philosophy and practice, which remained secure from public scrutiny for almost forty years. He was safe to pursue the directions and consequences of Thelema, free from the influences of mediocre philosophies that elsewhere stultified and prevented it from reaching its ultimate Aeonic unfoldment.
This book represents the first attempt ever made in any language to present a comprehensive view of the history, organization, doctrines, rituals, and practices of the most powerful and influential magical lodge in modern Germany. The “compendium” of FS material cited in Richard Cavandish’s Encyclopedia of the Unexplained is an enormous yet somewhat disorganized trove of documentation that was collected by Prof. Dr. Adolf Hemberger of the University of Giessen, Germany.2 Other recent treatments of the FS in German have also made use of the mountains of documentary evidence, although they have failed to organize it comprehensively.3 Here, I will try to present an organized and comprehensive outline of this magical lodge. The reader should be advised that the author is not an initiate of the FS. However, I had the advice and consultation of members and former members of the Brotherhood, as cited in the Acknowledgments. I hope that this combination, coupled with my own longtime experience in the history, theory, and practice of magic, will provide the sense of objective sympathy necessary to an accurate interpretation and presentation.
Figure I.1. Gregor A. Gregorius (1960)
The FS is an organization that has undergone several transformations during its most recent manifestation (from about 1926 to the present). Although the FS as it is constituted today may or may not bear any resemblance to the form of the order presented in this book, it is very likely that most of the ideas and practices discussed in these pages remain a part of the current doctrine of the FS in Germany.
In these pages there is, however, a comprehensive vision of the lodge, including many of its most secret doctrines and ritual practices from an earlier period. A thorough overview of its organizational structure of thirty-three degrees of initiation is one key to the understanding of the lodge’s work and purpose. The chapter on the doctrines of the FS is concentrated on what are perhaps the three most unique aspects of FS doctrine: (1) the astrological teaching of Saturnus as the Demiurge ruling over the present stage of cosmic evolution; (2) the strongly Luciferian aspect of this doctrine; and (3) the teachings of sexocosmology and sexual occultism—the Yoga of the Dark Light—as it is tied up with these theories.
The rituals presented here are complete treatments of rites found in archival material. They amply demonstrate the liturgical scope of the Brotherhood, and provide further significant insights into their philosophy that are inaccessible in theoretical discussions.
After studying the doctrines of the FS for almost a decade, and after significant experimentation with a number of its formulae, I believe that the Brotherhood of Saturn indeed holds a unique place in the history of the Western magical tradition. For too long, the English-speaking magical forum has been ignorant of the exact nature of German occultism and magic. Although a great deal of “English occultism” (e.g., Rosicrucianism, the Golden Dawn [cf. the cipher manuscripts], and even the Ordo Templi Orientis) is supposedly or actually derived from sources in her continental sister nation of Germany, little has been done in the way of systematically analyzing this vast and vibrant world. Generally, it might be said that what the Golden Dawn has been to Anglo-American occultism over the past hundred years, the Fraternitas Saturni has been to occultism in the German-speaking world. But whereas the “secrets” of the Golden Dawn have been published and reprinted many times over, the mysteries of the FS have—until recently—remained behind a veil of obscurity. Therefore, anyone who would really understand the depths of the magical subculture of today, be it in German or Anglo-American society, needs to have a thorough grasp of the history and doctrines of the Brotherhood of Saturn.