Lodge Leadership Tools - Hawthorne-Fortitude Masonic Lodge No ...

The Rosicurian EnlightenmentbyFrances A. Yates,Book Review By Bro. Frank BellIt can be thought that sometimesthe more illuminatingworks that deal withfreemasonry, are actually byproducts of other scholasticwork. As is seen with theRobinson books “Born inBlood” and “Dungeon Fireand Sword”The historian can write abook with great Masonic significance.The same is true with Frances A. Yates.The Rosicrucian link to freemasonry is one that isusually used by Masonic authors as a way of tyingThis earlier movement directly to freemasonryas a steady evolution of one society into another.While there are a good many interesting points todiscuss, the thought that these early Rosicrucianshad a physical operation( by which meaning thelodge as we know it and it’s many operations, andthat through time, they just blended into what istoday known as freemasonry) can be disproved inthe pages of this book.Yates, as an accomplished scholar of this period,gives us the straight facts as they were on theRosicrucian movement through illustrations fromthe texts that were issued by the Invisible Collegeas well as accounts of the events that were unfoldingin this period prior to the Thirty Years War.The background of the wedding of Frederick V,Elector Palantine of the Rhine and Princess Elizabeth,daughter of King James I of England isshown as the time of an inordinate amount of optimismamong the intelligentsia throughout Europe(most specifically in England and Bohemia) it isthrough this time of anticipation of a united protestantfront and it’s various benefits that the first ofthe Rosicrucian manuscripts are published.It is the break out piece The Chemical Weddingfollowed by the interest in this adventure of ChristianRosencreutz which is a key early indicator tothe author that there is more going on than meetsthe eye.Yates believes that this work and those that followare part of a trans channel collaboration of likeminded scholars and printers who are taking thistime of the joining of the Germanic and Englishroyal families (both protestant) as the beginning ofa great new era in thought and spirituality.From this reading, one almost at the time we areviewing, has to view Protestantism as the championof free thought and experimentation (both scientificand natural) and the Catholic church as oppressionand inquisition.Which, unfortunately, would have been the dogmaof the day. This new cross channel internationalunion was seen by these Rosicrucian brothers asbeing the counter to the Hapsburg empire.The problem, as it eventually unfolds, is that thisgroup of scholars and philosophers allows themselvesto be too drawn into the fantasy that is thenew kingdom under the right thinking King of Bohemiaand does not take into account the reality thatis the burgeoning military might of the Hapsburgs.Tragedy and disillusionment follow.What reads as a very textbook case of pure idealismbeing lead to disaster by stark reality is interestingin and of itself. The Rosicrucian contributionto the times as well as to the future view of religion,(Continued on page 52)51 ON THE WEB AT WWW.TWTMAG.COM 51