Three “Secret Societies” The International Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Fraternal Orders[1] describes a secret society as an exclusive organization that acts in its own special interest in favor of its members. This is a pretty broad definition. Of course, secret societies form for various purposes, including collegiate fraternalism, politics, religion and […]
Speculative Freemasonry Speculative Freemasonry had its genesis in seventeenth century Britain, where a mystical, proto-scientific culture thrived. Kirk MacNulty, in The Way of the Craftsman,[1] builds on the well known work of Francis Yates, tracing the origins of Speculative Freemasonry to the Renaissance, which embodied three major schools of thought: Scholasticism, Humanism, […]
Magic and Science: Danger and Power In the early days of science, thinkers did not separate science from spirituality. Until the nineteenth century, scientists maintained a holistic worldview that comprehended every aspect of experience and knowledge. Copernicus revered Hermes Trismegistus, Tycho Brahe studied astrology, and Johann Kepler followed Pythagorean philosophy. Robert Boyle, […]
PART II: A Brief History of the Bavarian Order of the Illuminati The European Womb In Part I of this lecture we made a general and all too incomplete survey of who joined the ranks of the Bavarian Illuminati. In Part II of this lecture we will make a […]
PART I: An Introduction to the Bavarian Order of the Illuminati Origins The original order of the Bavarian Illuminati was founded on the First of May in the year 1776. The founder of the order was Adam Weishaupt (1748 – 1830), who was raised by his godfather, […]
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Alchemy in Medieval Literature The alchemist of the Middle Ages was usually a professed Christian, often a monk or clergyman, who studied what he could of Hermetic alchemy, Greek philosophy, the Jewish Kabbalah, and his own native and foreign magic. The Great Work of the alchemist, in emulation of the “Great Architect,” was […]
The Vitruvian Tradition The liberal arts were based upon the Hellenistic education called enkyklios paideia, taught by fifth century BCE Sophists to the upper classes, and promoted by Roman luminaries like Cicero. The Classical Roman architect Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (80 BCE – 15 CE), who was raised in the early liberal arts tradition, […]
The Nestorians In the fifth century a Christian sect called the Nestorians, who followed Nestorius, a Patriarch of Constantinople, were declared heretical and broke with the established church. This sect migrated to Persia with Greek manuscripts and translated Greek texts to Syriac Aramaic, monopolizing medicine and incidentally bringing alchemical literature to […]
Alchemy Rising I found it strange that in my research I found no short, simple introduction to the first known alchemists in the Western world. A future blog article in Science Abbey (in progress) will address the rise of operative alchemy in context of the beginnings of ancient technology. What is interesting […]
