Christopher McIntosh and the Orden des Gold-und Rosenkreutz, Asiatic Brethren and more...
On Saturday, February 26th, 2011 at 2PM, the Rose Circle Research Foundation will host a book signing and symposium at 71 West 23rd Street in Manhattan, featuring the author, lecturer, professor Christopher McIntosh of Exeter University. The occasion is motivated by the Rose Circle's ideal of bringing unpublished information, both academic and artifactual, within the reach of the interested researcher, what ever their affiliation might be.
Dr. Christopher McIntosh is re-releasing his classic work via the SUNY Books Western Esoteric Traditions series for an affordable $80 dollar price, in sharp contrast with the $1,500.00 to $5,000.00 dollars it has been going for on the internet for the past ten years.
This classic work is titled as "The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason: Eighteenth-Century Rosicrucianism in Central Europe and Its Relationship to the Enlightenment", and this new edition is being released due to the ever growing demand for the more intricate details and archives of the more obscure Rosicrucian Masonic currents in Europe. It attracts both sociologist and historian, practitioner and political analyst alike, as this work stands as an objective, detail oriented presentation of information, much of it not readily available in the public sphere. The author brings to light the nuances of the political context and the intrigue of influences, and much of this information contrasts sharply with the popular high level summaries of the influence, activities and scope of such groups as the Germanic Gold und Rosenkreuz and the many streams that radiated from these lodges. From the covering of the German Masonic power of the Three Globes, to the supposed offspring of the Nascent Dawn to the definite break off of the Asiatic Brethren and Fratres Lucis, the high-degree Masons, aristocrats, intelligence agents and various conflicting agendas, make for a fascinating read and a take on the reality of history that has been for the most part either suppressed or simply under-reported due to turmoil on the continent and the elusive caches of archives that result.
The focus of this book is mainly the Golden and Rosy Cross, operating in German-speaking lands, the initiation and patronage of the Prussian King, Frederick William II, the fascinating content of the rites and the contributors to the same, with all of their interpersonal conflict and fraternity alike. Mainstream academics have, when approaching the subject at all, presented the Golden and Rosy Cross as a conservative, anti-Enlightenment movement of irrational hermits, clinging to the lowly folk traditions of the middle ages. McIntosh presents, with the help of exceptionally rare German texts extracted from various archives, a re-evaluation that unquestionably shows us that things were in all reality, much more complex than that. The intricacies of the counter-intelligence operations of the secular humanist agenda plotted and carried out by the Bavarian Illuminati against Christian esoteric Orders, is a complicated tale of inter-related families, names, double agents, schisms and the agendas of Jacobite politics, Protestant reformation, Jesuit intervention and political treason. As the publisher's website describes, "Dr. McIntosh argues rather that it was part of a "third force", which allied itself sometimes with the Enlightenment, sometimes with the Counter-Enlightenment." The Order's (and subsequent break off groups) focus upon physical alchemy as an intense lab study to accompany a magical masonic degree system are detailed in McIntosh's factually lucid, yet fluidic style of writing.
In this new context, Hermetic Neoplatonism, Kabbalistic (both Jewish Rabbinic and Christian Hermetic sources) physical alchemical operations, blended with Orthodox Christian dogma, Neoplatonic intellectual concepts and rigid scientific methodology to produce a vast array of what outsiders might dismissively classify as conflicting dogma. Papal powers published lists of banned books by authors who were involved in occult Masonic circles of Rosy Cross lodges, while simultaneously we find Franciscan and Jesuit hands involved in the chartering of high degree systems of Masonry and Rosicruciana. Admittedly, relations between Christian clergy and the Rosicrucian lodges were at times tense, but this is in the context of Roman Catholic, Protestant and certainly Orthodox priests being at times involved in the stream of Orders related to the Gold und Rosencreutzers. Depending on the agenda at the moment, moves might be made to counter the Counter-Enlightment clergy's rulings and writing, and at other times they would be supported both openly and in sub-rosa gatherings.
Make sure to keep the date open, as this rare opportunity to meet with and listen to Dr. McIntosh is not to be missed.
Dr. Christopher McIntosh is re-releasing his classic work via the SUNY Books Western Esoteric Traditions series for an affordable $80 dollar price, in sharp contrast with the $1,500.00 to $5,000.00 dollars it has been going for on the internet for the past ten years.
The focus of this book is mainly the Golden and Rosy Cross, operating in German-speaking lands, the initiation and patronage of the Prussian King, Frederick William II, the fascinating content of the rites and the contributors to the same, with all of their interpersonal conflict and fraternity alike. Mainstream academics have, when approaching the subject at all, presented the Golden and Rosy Cross as a conservative, anti-Enlightenment movement of irrational hermits, clinging to the lowly folk traditions of the middle ages. McIntosh presents, with the help of exceptionally rare German texts extracted from various archives, a re-evaluation that unquestionably shows us that things were in all reality, much more complex than that. The intricacies of the counter-intelligence operations of the secular humanist agenda plotted and carried out by the Bavarian Illuminati against Christian esoteric Orders, is a complicated tale of inter-related families, names, double agents, schisms and the agendas of Jacobite politics, Protestant reformation, Jesuit intervention and political treason. As the publisher's website describes, "Dr. McIntosh argues rather that it was part of a "third force", which allied itself sometimes with the Enlightenment, sometimes with the Counter-Enlightenment." The Order's (and subsequent break off groups) focus upon physical alchemy as an intense lab study to accompany a magical masonic degree system are detailed in McIntosh's factually lucid, yet fluidic style of writing.
In this new context, Hermetic Neoplatonism, Kabbalistic (both Jewish Rabbinic and Christian Hermetic sources) physical alchemical operations, blended with Orthodox Christian dogma, Neoplatonic intellectual concepts and rigid scientific methodology to produce a vast array of what outsiders might dismissively classify as conflicting dogma. Papal powers published lists of banned books by authors who were involved in occult Masonic circles of Rosy Cross lodges, while simultaneously we find Franciscan and Jesuit hands involved in the chartering of high degree systems of Masonry and Rosicruciana. Admittedly, relations between Christian clergy and the Rosicrucian lodges were at times tense, but this is in the context of Roman Catholic, Protestant and certainly Orthodox priests being at times involved in the stream of Orders related to the Gold und Rosencreutzers. Depending on the agenda at the moment, moves might be made to counter the Counter-Enlightment clergy's rulings and writing, and at other times they would be supported both openly and in sub-rosa gatherings.
Make sure to keep the date open, as this rare opportunity to meet with and listen to Dr. McIntosh is not to be missed.
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