Index: The Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem – Lucis Fratres: the Brothers of Light. Anno Domini 1400 - Code Book of the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem - Code Book of the Knights Kadosh or «Kadeschim» - Code of Kilwinning, Scottish Mother Lodge - Masonic and Royal Arch Codes - Codes of the Sovereign Princes Rose Cross and Knights of the Eagle and of the Pelican, mason Princes and the Codex Rosae Crucis - Manifest characteristics of the Templar Bro. and of the Rose Cross Bro.
The Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem
By following the thread of the documents available, we can conclude that the Templar Order didn’t dissolve completely. Many soldier-monks entered the ranks of other Orders, in Scotland and Spain. There, they continued standing out for courage and loyalty. Others, it is said, found hospitality in the Confraternities of the Freemasons, where they continued erecting Churches and Cathedrals.
Since the templar knights were ordained monks, some of them were able to go back into the shadow of monasticism. The rejoining of the Templar Knights to the monastic Order obtained a Papal Bull of recognition from the successor of Clement V, the pope that wanted their dispersion.
According to the author of the essay, though, the transformation of the Ordo Templi didn’t stop. It was the root for the innermost mysticism that eventually originated the Confraternity of the Rose Cross.
It continues in the article: The templar diaspora, up to the Confraternity of the Rose Cross.
Lucis Fratres: the Brothers of Light. Anno Domini 1400
In the 14th century two initiatives of the Rose Cross confraternity started out; they marked the re-emergence of Gnosis in the philosophical thought of the western hemisphere.
In 1460 an Initiatory Cenacle started operating; in order to symbolize the Brotherly Unity, as it often happened in the Ancient Tradition, it was given the Body and Name of one man: Christian RosenKreuz.
Christian, then, because the Adepts followed the teachings of the primitive and pure Christianity of Gnosis, with the reaching of direct Knowledge, for the alignment of man (the Initiate) to the Will and Work of the 3rd Aspect of the Trinity of the One (see intelligent motion and activity).
Primitive Christianity is the Doctrine that precedes the separation of a faction of Christianity, which didn’t con-fused itself with the temporal power of the Roman Empire.*
__________
* The beginning of that con-fusion was the myth of the roman emperor Constantine, who, with his statement to the people that he had received ‘in hoc signo vicit’ (being careful not to specify which god gave it to him, one of his many gods or the one God of his enemies), obtained the result of throwing the Christian people into the horror of a first war, that for Their Creed was fratricide, because it irremediably infringed the Commandment: do not kill.
That first fratricidal war was followed, thanks to the hierarchies of that people, by so many other wars that it would have been possible to build with each of them, always fought in the name of Christ, a necklace streaming with blood; the latter can only be compared, because of the suffering and pain that must have caused the Master and Son of God, to the crown of thorns that other men, fearers of God on earth, respectful of Institutions and defender of the Country, inflicted on him on the Calvary.
Thanks to that alliance with the Powers of the empire and once that Christianity had become a state cult, due to the fact that its loyalty (?) to those institutions had to be guaranteed, some generals became bishops of the newborn roman church. This caused the flight to Alexandria of the Christian Patriarchs and the introduction, in the Christian people left at the shadow of the empire, of all those elements that belonged to the pagan culture. These elements were, for example, the following and acceptance still today of the calendars of pagan festivals, or the return to the worshipping of images, categorically prohibited by their Sacred Text. Appealing, in order to obtain vows and favors, to the tutelary and personal deities, which re-lived under the human aspect of saints, dead men and women, infringing even the precepts passed on into words… I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me…you shall not make for yourself a carved image. In other words, this is the return to chaos as represented in the Bible by the tale of the worshipping of the Golden Calf, given by the Tribes of Israel whilst Moses received the Tables of stone on the mountain.
The re-reading of those events in the key of Precepts of history could be useful to many of us, in order to understand what Christianity had become thanks to that ‘political’ alliance and after leaving the boundaries of Primitive Tradition.
__________
RosenKreuz with his mystic symbolism of the Rose, showed the Holy Wisdom or Virgin Sophia as coming "from the East", the feminine and receptive aspect of comprehension, to be guarded, as Dante Alighieri said, "from the savage she-wolf of Rome", which allows the conceptual introduction of the Intellect of the masculine conscience; because once lost the passive characteristics of the humid form, the mind tends to the perfect androgyny of the Wise man (the Triad). There is then the symbolism of the Cross (+) in order to ‘penetrate’ the Mystery of the Cosmic Cross (see).
Its Fedeli (Faithful in Love, Note of the Translator) Adepts made the first work public in Germany only in 1614, with the title of Fama Fraternitatis.
__________
* The Bro. who is willing to do so, can research from Boccaccio to Dante Alighieri and Leonardo da Vinci, through Guido Guinizzelli of Bologna, Guido Cavalcanti of Florence, Cino of Pistoia, Francesco da Barberino, Cecco d’Ascoli, Guido Orlandi, Gianni Alfani and Sir Ventura Monaci, those references to the confraternity of the Fedeli d’Amore, in which all the best minds of Italy and the ‘Stil Novo’ took part. And he should also research their analogy of thought with the ‘Cathar Heresy’. The Cathars were considered as heretics because they thought that they could (and that they had to) stretch up to God by themselves, as children and without any earthly intermediaries!
Dante Alighieri, in his work, places into hell the "lawless Shepherd of uglier deeds", which is the action of selling off the Templar Order.
«As one, who fain would speak yet holds his peace, Beatrice led me; and ‘Behold’ she said, ‘This fair assemblage! Stoles of snowy white!»
Paradise, XXX, 127/129
__________
For the description of the second initiative of the Rose Cross, I will let the Bro. K. R. H. Mackenzie talk, because he is a Mason in the Universal Tradition of the Order, and one of the three inspirers of the Masonry of the Human Law (of equal rights and dignity for man and woman to the initiation in front of the G. A. O. T. U.) whose Thought changed and upset the entirely masculine view of Freemasonry originated from the Philosophy of the Vulgar Era.
This is another name that the Brother should keep in mind, both as an author and a reference for his future research.
...Lucis Fratres is a mystical Order that appeared in Florence in 1498. Among its members there were Pasqualis, Cagliostro, Swedenborg, S. Martin, Eliphas Levi and many other eminent Mystics.
Its members were persecuted by the Inquisition. It is a small but compact body and its members are spread all over the world.
They belong to the same branch as the Brotherhood of Luxor, whose name comes from the ancient Lukshur in Balochistan, between Bela and Chegi.
The Order is very ancient and the most secret of all.
It goes without saying that its members have nothing in common with the H. B. of Luxor, both in Glasgow and in Boston.
Going back to my incidental mention of Cagliostro, I take the chance to quote (despite realizing the paradox I am causing) from a Commentary, claimed to be written by him many years after his death, some parts where he mentions certain events that we all know and which he was protagonist of, because I think they contain an important teaching and warning for esotericists:
…a famous Adept, whose real name is claimed to be Giuseppe Balsamo by his friends…
…his story accepted by the public is too well known to be repeated, but his true story has not been told yet.
His destiny was the same as that of any human being that shows more knowledge than other people; he was "stoned to death" with the persecution, the lies, the slanderous accusations; nevertheless he was friend and counselor of the highest and most powerful people in the countries he visited. Finally he was processed and condemned in Rome as a heretic, and it was said that he died confined in a State prison. His end, though, was not entirely undeserved, because he was unfaithful to his vows in a certain way, since he failed in chastity and lingered in ambition and selfishness.
As well as being food for thought, I trust that the Bro. researcher will find, whilst studying, these statements also published in Italy, helpful in order to discover in which extraordinary character and author is claimed to be hiding Cagliostro afterwards, continuing His work as an Initiate.
Code of the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem
The secret Templar Code contained in the Cross has been taken from the Codes of the Rule and divulged by the researchers Charles Maillard de Chambure and J. H. Probst-Biraben.
As we can see from a simple comparison with the following ones, it has nothing in common with those of so-called Templar descent, which evolved thanks to Masonic Judaism.
Code of the Knights Kadosh or «Kadeschim»
The degree of supreme Templar vocation is in actual fact the most Hebrew of the Masonic degrees.
Genealogically it is a direct descendant of the Hebrew Kadeschim, which the title of Kadosh – "Perfect or Saint" - comes from. It developes its Ritual and symbology from the Old Testament where they knocked down the Temple, the Pillars and took revenge of those who offended Jeovah’s Law.
In order to understand properly those references, I advice the researcher to study thoroughly the whole 23rd book of the Bible, from which I have taken certain significant passages that clearly indicate who belongs to the IX degree of the Scottish Rite.
II King XXIII
4 /... and the king commanded Hlikiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven.
And he burned them without Jerusalem…
13 /... and the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the Children of Ammon, did the king defile.
14 / and he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men..
15 / moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he brake down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to powder, and burned the grove.
From their code book as well we can deduct a lack of connection with the Christian West.
This trend, though, disappears in the following Code, by the Knights Kadosh of the Black and White Eagle:
We don’t know to what extent the Code of the Mother Lodge of Kilwinning influenced that change.
Code of Kilwinning, Scottish Mother Lodge
Masonic and Royal Arch Codes
By intervening on the original Masonic Codes, the Israelite Brother Moses Hayes, founder of the Royal Arch in December 1778 in England and in 1797 in the USA, determined certain changes in those Codes in order to make them more suitable to the English and French languages.
These codes can be accompanied by two more, contained inside two geometric forms, always present in the Masonic Temple:
We don’t want to dwell on it, therefore we won’t show you the various Marks used by the Mark Master Masons, because they are irrelevant for the purpose of our study; let’s talk about another code instead.
Codes of the Sovereign Princes Rose Cross and Knights of the Eagle and of the Pelican, mason Princes and the Codex Rosae Crucis
Through time, the presence in Freemasonry of some Brothers of the Rose Cross has particularly influenced the esoteric culture of "Harmony and Beauty" of intellectually more advanced and spiritually more prone masons.
With their "custom made" teachings they contributed to give scientific value to the esoteric Symbolism, stripping the Sacred Sciences of the veil of unreal fairy tale and myth that was covering them, due to the incomprehension of the Mysteries of a Lesser Brotherhood without guide or support.
|
On the left here we can see a page of a Codex Rosae Crucis for the instruction of Brothers, initiated to the Rosicrucian science.
The Rose Cross Symbology, based on ideograms, makes wide use of Numerology and Sacred Mathematics. The science of the Libris Naturae is simply the preparatory and didactic stage to reach the command of the Science of Sound, unique and true agent of (transmuting) transformation of the Universe. |
Manifest characteristics of the Templar Bro. and of the Rose Cross Bro.
Whilst making a clear distinction between the Templar belonging to the Militia and the Templar introduced to the Mysteries of the Temple, let’s try and evaluate together at least two of the most controversial ideal values which he committed his life to and for which he was prepared to give his life in battle, always against numerous enemies, like the Rule prescribed.
The Templar Initiate followed and worshipped the idea of the Cosmic and Universal Christ; his Cross was the axis of the Universe and his ‘nails’ where the elements themselves of manifestation.
Therefore we can simplify it by saying that they loved the (Spiritual) Son of God, crucified (by the elements) to the incarnation in the matter (of the Form).
From here comes the degradation of the instrument of His physical torture.
The wooden cross that he was given is the symbol of the dark Power created by man.
And if this dark power is wrapped around the conscience of the lesser guides of the humankind, be it royalty or ecclesiasts, it still represents the Power of Satan and his Church on this earth.
That Power and whoever administers it on his brothers in violence, selfishness or abuse is the antichrist that manifests and perpetuates itself through the bad Masters (the Great Black Lodge).
Using their own symbolic language, the Templar Initiates "prepared, by preparing themselves" to the most important of battles for a Mystic-Knight, the Armageddon (or Harmagedon).
In that battle between Spiritual Church (of Christ) and Church of the Temporal Power (of Satan), the rebirth of the celestial Jerusalem will be decided. It is the city symbol and point of rejoining for the spiritually regenerated Humankind; the knowledge of universal Brotherhood, Love and Language.
To take part to this project, inspired by the mystic and spiritual vision of Saint Bernard, were called all men of good will; beyond flags, races, creeds, languages and profane obediences, where what connects all the Brothers is only: Knowledge, Faith and Will.
Therefore let’s examine the "esoteric instruments" of the Knight Templar initiated to the mystery of the Baphomet.
The Oath |
represents: |
the transmutation of profanity into the Obedience |
The Cloak |
represents: |
the Rule of the Order |
The Templar Cross |
represents: |
the Sign of the Order |
The Horse |
represents: |
the Order |
The Two Knights |
represent: |
the Dualism of the opposites made complementary by the Order |
The Helm |
represents: |
Ability and steady attitude |
The Sword |
represents: |
the Will |
The Spear |
represents: |
the backbone of the Work |
The Armor |
represents: |
Faith |
The Spurs |
represent: |
Discrimination and Direction |
The Ribbon |
represents: |
the Recognition of Brotherhood |
The Kiss of the Grand Master to the Knight |
represents: |
the Transmission of the initiatory spirit |
