CHAPTER

12

The Philosopher’s Dilemma

In every generation there have been a few people who did not believe so much as know some of the answers to the eternal questions of humanity.1 Their knowledge is notoriously difficult to convey to the rest of us, but its radiance and certainty act as a beacon and a reminder of what a man or woman may be. In an ordered and traditional society, there is a place for them: like Catherine of Siena or Nicholas of Cusa,² they command the respect of kings and popes, and set a standard of holiness and wisdom to which the clergy (if not insanely jealous) aspire. But what do they do when the spiritual equilibrium of the world falls apart, as it did during the fifteenth century with the East-West schism and the influx of humanism; in the sixteenth, with the Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and Wars of Religion; and in the seventeenth, with the witchcraft mania, the Thirty Years’ War, and the scientific revolution?

The evidence points in two directions. Some of the Wise made efforts behind the scenes toward the healing and renovation of society. Others worked to bring illumination to individuals. The first are visible in Rosicrucianism at the beginning of the seventeenth century; the second, who will be treated in the next chapter, in alchemy and theosophy.

The philosopher’s dilemma is the choice between these two fields of action, the political and the personal. It may be phrased thus: Can the state of humanity as a whole be remedied, or is it in such a parlous case that remedy is only possible on the individual level?

One does not have to be excessively wise to be troubled by this question, but to answer it requires a sounding of one’s deepest convictions about human nature and the place of man on earth. For example, does one believe that life on earth is merely a prelude to a much more important life that begins after death? If so, the social conditions of this vale of tears are a secondary matter, even a distraction. Does one believe, with most Christians, that everyone has an individual and immortal soul, or, with some pagans, that personal immortality is won only by titanic efforts? Is there a clear distinction between material and spiritual existence, or are body and soul both part of a continuum that is split by our misperception? Should I concern myself with humanity as a whole, or with my own salvation, leaving the rest to Divine Providence or the goddess Fortuna? Am I a separate unit with my own spiritual history, a stranger or even exile on this earth (the Gnostic point of view), or do I belong to a tribe, race, or species with a macrohistory of past and future evolution?

In the sixteenth century there were three main doctrinal streams in Europe whose business it was to spare people the trouble that such questions cause. Catholics were advised to leave weighty theological matters to the Church, as agent of God’s will on earth, and to try to live a virtuous life according to her teachings. Martin Luther, on the contrary, held that everyone had a right to seek his or her own answers, but that God had placed these unerringly in the Scriptures. The sectaries of John Calvin neatly divided humanity into predestined groups of the saved and the damned, and hoped that their conduct and fortunes proved them to be among the former. By the middle of the century all three factions were at daggers drawn, while the Jews, patiently awaiting their Messiah, did their best to keep out of the crossfire.3

It will always be a mystery how the religion whose primary commandments are love of God, and love of others, came to such a pass. But a clue must lie in some of the beliefs that were grafted onto the stem of the Gospels. What educated Stoic or Platonist could ever have taken literally the doctrines of predestination and transubstantiation, the infallibility of the Scriptures, or the purchase of indulgences to shorten one’s time in purgatory? What thoughtful Christian could avoid creeping doubts about such things? The axiom that those who feel insecure in their own beliefs often react with aggressive dogmatism was amply demonstrated.

The first grand and sweeping solution to the philosopher’s dilemma was that of Ignatius of Loyola, already mentioned in chapter 10. The Jesuits’ method took the bull by both horns. On the personal level, it trained its members through the use of the active imagination to become single-minded warriors for Christ and the Catholic faith. At the end of the Spiritual Exercises there is no room for doubt: what the novice was taught to believe, he now knows, and an unshakable faith renders him ready even for martyrdom.

On the collective level, the Jesuits’ intention was to convert the entire world to the Catholic faith. Being more intelligent than some other monastic orders, they realized that this was better done by stealth than by the bludgeon and the stake. Jesuit education therefore celebrated the glory and variety of the God-created world. It built on the natural curiosity of the young, encouraged theatrics (a branch of the imagination) and the applied sciences. In times of religious stalemate, even Protestants would send their children to Jesuit schools.4 Ignatius’s missionaries, who formed the first global organization, learned the languages and religions of their hosts, then adjusted their conversion strategies accordingly. Sometimes they almost “went native” in the course of their infiltration, and sent home reports that are a priceless source for historical ethnography. But always there was the adamantine will to bring about one, and only one end; and this was used, say the Jesuits’ critics, to justify dubious and sinister means. Also one wonders whether there is any validity in the “knowledge” attained through the Spiritual Exercises, or whether it is a fanatical reinforcement of prescribed answers to the eternal questions.

There is little comparison between the powerful Jesuit order and the homemade concoctions of a few Lutheran friends that launched the Rosicrucian movement in the second decade of the seventeenth century.⁵ But the two tracts, the Fame and the Confession of the Brethren of the Rosy Cross, fell on the fertile ground of a Europe avid for a spiritual food above and beyond what the churches had to offer. Thus a new myth was created of a secret fraternity of wise initiates who genuinely wish the best for humanity and toil behind the scenes to bring it about. Many people were, and still are, aching to believe this.

The Rosicrucian manifestos circulated in manuscript from 1611, then appeared in print in 1614 and 1615, followed in 1616 by their pendant, the fantasy novel The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz. The manifestos played on the mythic themes of a traveler who brings to Europe the secret teachings of the East; the burial of his body and his wisdom, and the opening of his vault 120 years later; the foundation of a fraternity of wise men who move incognito among the nations, healing the body in their capacity as physicians, and working to heal the soul of Europe; and the announcement that the time has now come for rebirth.

The Rosicrucian writings come out of a Lutheran milieu influenced by the Hermetic physician Paracelsus (1493–1541) and by alchemy. They claim that the Brethren draw their wisdom from twin sources: the Bible and the Book of Nature, and they urge the world to do likewise. There is no room for the Catholic hierarchy, and no emphasis on damnation. The Chemical Wedding blends Christian theosophy with a cult of Venus as goddess of Nature and patron of alchemy.6 It is strongly influenced by that epic of the pagan revival, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of Francesco Colonna.⁷

The Rosicrucian enterprise belongs to the movement known as Pansophy (literally “all-wisdom”), which combines the natural with the supernatural sciences for the betterment of the world. One founder of the pansophic current was John Dee (1527–1609), who had urged English artisans to study mathematics for the better mastery of technology, then had pursued his own research through “angelic conversations.”8 Another was Paracelsus, whose conception of a living Nature, shot through by celestial influences and responsive to alchemy, was combined with a solid knowledge of herbalism, of chemistry, and of the Scriptures.⁹ A fertile breeding-ground of Pansophy was Prague, where Emperor Rudolf II (reigned 1576–1611) allowed as much religious diversity as conditions would permit, and encouraged every art and science, especially the Hermetic ones.¹⁰

The genius of the Rosicrucian group, whether intentional or not, was to hit on the ingredients for a lasting myth. The final paroxysm of the Wars of Religion, the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), interrupted but did not extinguish it. In Protestant lands, the Rosicrucians could pass as a kind of counter-Jesuit order: noncoercive, non-dogmatic, and open to the occult potentials which so scared the churches. But Pansophy now also became counterscientific, in the sense of offering an alternative to an increasingly positivist and materialistic science.

A good illustration of the philosopher’s dilemma is the career of the Englishman Elias Ashmole (1617–1692).¹¹ He was interested from a young age in the occult sciences, especially astrology, and started out as a promising lawyer and public servant. But since he served King Charles I, who was deposed and beheaded in 1649, he had to spend the Commonwealth era in obscurity. For fifteen years he made a deep study of the natural sciences, especially alchemy, medicine, and botany; and of antiquarian matters: heraldry, genealogy, numismatics, and the history of knightly orders. With the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, Ashmole was ready for public service again, and became a kind of master of ceremonies for the monarchy. He wrote a great history of the Order of the Garter, stage-managed its rites (which often involved foreign potentates), and served as authority on all matters of tradition and precedence.

Ashmole was like some chief Druid or Pontifex Maximus, born out of time—and all the more so since every decision he took was governed by horary astrology. His work was a monument to the traditional, hierarchical concept of an orderly society ruled by an anointed King. But far from being insular, he was also a voracious collector of antiquarian objects and of curiosities, natural and artificial, from all over the world. Like the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, whose ethnographic collection was built on the contributions of missionaries, Ashmole was a founder of one of the earliest museums. He was also a founding member of the Royal Society. In accordance with the pansophic ideal of universal education, he gave his collections to Oxford University, to be open to the public as the Ashmolean Museum.

Wise men such as Ashmole are not necessarily pious or saintly people, nor do they always share current moral and egalitarian ideals. It is not a question of who is right or wrong: they do what they have to do, because they see more clearly and more deeply than the rest of us. And perhaps they serve other gods than ours.

A new Rosicrucian order appeared in the eighteenth century. It was first described in 1710 by “Sincerus Renatus” (a Silesian minister, Samuel Richter) and institutionalized around mid-century. Unlike the original, this “Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross” (Gold- und Rosenkreutz) was fairly visible, and some of its members, headed by King Frederick William II of Prussia, wielded real power.12 Like other “enlightened despots” of their time,¹³ they approved of religious freedom and some civil liberties for the masses. For themselves, the order provided an elaborate system of rituals, grades, titles, and symbols by which they climbed the ladder of initiation. There was much interest in alchemy, and even some kind of magical evocation.

The new Rosicrucianism dropped the polemic against the pope and his church that had marked the original Confession, and in the spirit of the new century opened its doors to Catholics as well as to Protestants of various denominations. By steering between the twin shallows of sectarian religion and scientism, it evaded the rivalry between the two that, in the historians’ limited picture, characterized the Age of Enlightenment.

The Golden and Rosy Cross was closely connected to the more hierarchical and ceremonial wing of Freemasonry, whose history also illustrates our theme. Elias Ashmole, as it happens, is the first known person to have been initiated into a lodge of Masons as a nonoperative member. That was in 1646. It is not difficult to see why he was drawn to it. Legend has it, and recent scholarship tends to confirm,¹⁴ that after the Order of Knights Templar was suppressed in 1307, some knights escaped to Scotland and kept the Templar tradition secretly alive there. Naturally they had to cease from the public work that had made them the first international bankers and the ensurers of safe passage for pilgrims to the Holy Land. An understandable affinity drew them into alliance with the Scottish guild of masons or architects, whose craft mythology referred to the most famous of all ancient buildings, the Temple of Solomon. Apocryphal legends about the temple and its builders served the guild for initiation rites and as a source of moralizing allegory. For instance, the human being was likened to a raw, unshaped stone fresh from the quarry, which must be chipped, shaped, and polished in order to be worthy of taking its place in the finished building. Society is, by implication, a temple in the making, where God will eventually dwell.

In traditional Freemasonry, the three initiations of Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master are quasi-sacramental rites that bring about a transformation in the person. They work not with allegory (which is merely giving things different names) but with symbolism. A symbol does not have just one meaning, like the Statue of Liberty: it has multiple meanings and serves as a link between levels of reality. For example, the black and white squares of the checkerboard floor used in some Masonic lodges do not stand only for the mixture of good and evil in the world, but for the two complementary forces out of which the cosmos is made. These manifest as expansion and contraction, day and night, male and female, and a hundred other pairs. To realize this is to gain an understanding of one way in which the “Great Architect of the Universe” works, from the top to the bottom of his creation. It also conceals a profound teaching about good and evil.15

Alongside the initiatic and hierarchical orders, a contrary sort of Freemasonry developed in tune with the currents of secularism, progress, optimism, and egalitarianism. To this way of thinking, which had its unacknowledged roots in the Gospels, the obstacles to universal brotherhood were a church which still wanted to hang on to its worldly power, and absolute monarchy. Because of their privacy, secrecy, and wide network, some Masonic lodges served as hotbeds of freethinking, and, later in the century, of revolution.16 For this reason they were periodically closed down and banned by law, as were the Jesuits. Both movements represented a menace that could not be tolerated by those trying to hold society in fragile equilibrium.¹⁷

By the early nineteenth century, the socially progressive wing of Freemasonry had supplanted the initiatic and hierarchical one, which spawned a variety of magical and fringe-Masonic Orders. Consequently, Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry today have virtually exchanged their original positions. Whereas the Rosicrucianism of 1614 wanted to renovate the world, the modern groups sailing under its banner have no social effect,¹⁸ but provide individuals with teachings and practices for self-improvement through occultism. Whereas the earliest Freemasonry was chivalric and initiatic, now it is secularized and philanthropic, with no view of personal transformation beyond the ethical level. In the United States its influence is diluted among many other fraternal orders with even less traditional content. In short, the philosophers who, according to Plato, should have been compelled to be our rulers, or at least to be the power behind the throne, have packed their bags and left.¹⁹