by Robert Richardson
Originally published in
New Dawn No. 64 (January-February
2001)
from
Alpheus Website
Robert Richardson is the author of The Unknown
Treasure: The Priory of Sion Fraud and the
Spiritual Treasure of Rennes-le-Château |
To students of history, religion, or the
occult, a pattern of individual names and esoteric movements appears
on the canvas of time like a sudden flash of light, then just as
quickly vanishes. A group of disparate people – sometimes famous,
sometimes obscure, sometimes solitary, sometimes united, but always
engaged in some amorphous activity – spontaneously surfaces. Just as
suddenly their traces evaporate, their true purpose and the scope of
their actions never comprehended.
Understanding their reality seems
to be beyond our grasp. Further study may grudgingly yield
information – but it is inconclusive, incomplete, perplexing. Their
nature and purpose seems to forever remain a mystery. The search for
a solution only leads to speculations, not genuine answers.
For us to intellectually apprehend how and why esoteric groups work
and influence the world requires a different type of thinking, a
thought process that sees these organizations and their activities
as an ebb and flow of an ideal. Most of us have approached the
inquiry into the nature of how esoteric groups actually work and
influence history by studying the limited and grossly distorted
documentation available about them, like an investment analyst
abstractly examining from afar the sterile financial structure of a
multi-national corporation. But for us to understand the nature of
historical esoteric groups, we should first attempt to find their
underlying purpose. If we approach their study through that avenue,
we may be able to understand why and how they work to achieve their
purposes.
All of the positive esoterically tinged movements that have
influenced history share one common characteristic. They seek to
positively impact and alter, in a transformational way, the entire
structure and direction of society. Their impetus is to interject
into day to day living a transcendent awareness and communion with
the spiritual element of life, to give a spiritual orientation and
focus to the material activities of day to day living – to, in
effect, spiritualize the material. The reason for this direction is
to correctly align man with the necessary spiritual path to fulfill
his spiritual destiny. Their motives are highly altruistic, despite
the wildly imaginative suspicions and innuendoes of many writers and
even some church leaders. The methods employed by many powerful
Western spiritual movements are always entirely in keeping with
these goals.
The best known of these movements have manifested at key
transitional points in Western history.
-
The Rosicrucian movement on
continental Europe
-
The less obvious but equally influential
hermetic academies in Renaissance Italy and England
-
The Cathars in
southern France
-
The Essenes at the dawn of the Christian era
-
And
the best known, and by far the most misunderstood, of these groups,
the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and The Temple of Solomon –
The Knights Templar
Each of these groups formed, existed, and
survived a certain duration to accomplish a particular mission, then
vanished. Through their actions, each of them positively influenced
society as we know it today.
Historians and spiritual writers have expended a great deal of ink
unsuccessfully trying to explain what these groups were about and
what they believed. Each of these groups encountered considerable
opposition and conflict and, seemingly, was superseded by rival
groups. History is invariably altered by the victors to suit their
goals and needs. Most of the existing works about esoteric groups
have been based on deliberately distorted records left by the
supposed victors. For example, as has been very aptly stated,
attempting to draw an accurate picture of the activities of the
Knights Templar by studying the records of the Inquisition is like
trying to get an accurate picture of the activities of the wartime
French resistance solely by studying the records of the Gestapo.(1)
However, one unaltered stream runs through each of these groups. It
is their operational procedure. Each group has several common yet
contradictory characteristics. Their organizational structure is
both hierarchical and independent. It is at once interdependent and
self-sustaining. In other words, it is a cell-like structure,
organized around a belief system, designed to be able to function
without need for a central governing body, yet still maintaining
dutiful fealty and responsibility to the doctrine which the overall
body represents. To cite one case, most people, ignorant of the
actual working nature of the Essenes, assume that the Qumram
monastery was the only Essene entity. In fact, many Essenes lived in
the day to day society. The Qumram community was a centralized
training base.
Essene headquarters were on Mt. Carmel.
The Essenes, like the Cathars, the Templars, and the
Hermetic
academies, could function independently if cut off from their
supposed core. The Rosicrucian groups are the best recognized model
of this structure. This system later became the basis for
intelligence organizations and underground resistance movements.
They were consciously organized like the esoteric societies,
designed to continue functioning without support or contact from the
main body, yet incapable of revealing the heart or details of the
structure of the entire organism if penetrated or compromised by
opposing forces.
Similarly, each of the esoteric groups has other definite
organizational characteristics:
-
Some sort of unified command and
reporting structure that always appears vague and mysterious to
outsiders
-
A highly disciplined internal training system
-
A firm
code of conduct
-
An adherence to a canon of basic beliefs not fully
comprehended by outsiders
-
The unwavering concept of individual
personal responsibility and personal accountability
-
The
invariable but gracefully unstated implication of leadership by
example
These traits do not define a belief system
per se, but something far
more important and exceptionally relevant to our society today. They
define a principle-centered existence that is applied in day to day
affairs. They define very clearly a specific way of living one’s
life. This way of life is lived in accordance with the knowledge and
principles that have been carefully and selectively handed down
orally through generations of initiates, and have as their basis the
essential principles of the universe and the knowledge of the origin
and purpose of man. This orally transmitted information is referred
to as “The Tradition”, and sometimes, when collected in a preserved
body of wisdom, “The Temple.”
Before examining more closely how this system has impacted us, it
will benefit us to review the Western model for the public
visibility of this system.
-
The model was long established in the
West
-
It entered into a decline
-
Its adherents transferred the model
to other bases, perpetrated it, and preserved it for transmission
into the future
-
The model was the Egyptian Temple system
All of Egyptian society was organized along an esoteric and an
exoteric basis. The exoteric structure centered around the pharaonic
system of government, with which academic students of this
civilization have occupied themselves in an effort to comprehend why
this society lasted so long and so successfully. Their studies have
not seen much successful fruit, because they have failed to
comprehend that it was the esoteric structure which sustained the
entire basis of the Egyptian dynasties and the surrounding society
for so many centuries.(2)
This esoteric structure has had little effective study in academic
circles, like most of man’s genuine history. It was organized around
the Temple system. The Temple system was based on the gradual
instruction of an increasingly elite group. This study took many
decades. It involved intensive personal discipline. It began with a
period of self-purification. It entailed physical, mental, and
spiritual training. It worked on all aspects of the being.
The successful candidate was gradually culled away from his peers.
The less capable aspirants were weeded out. The more fortunate were
advanced progressively and carefully through the system over many
years. They studied the physical and spiritual aspects of man, his
origin, purpose, and relationship with the divine, becoming true
physicians who could heal not just the physical being. Through
increasingly progressive steps, they ultimately advanced to a series
of tests. Some of these tests proved fatal to the aspirant. One
objective of the training was an induced out of body experience in
the Great Pyramid. To return the aspirant to this plane required the
efforts of a high priest with twelve disciples. The priests were not
always able to return the aspirant, and the death of the aspirant
was not uncommon. When the aspirant did return to this plane, he
consciously saw the world differently, like one who has been reborn
with new knowledge and a new perspective.
This is the origin of the phrase now so
popular with fundamentalist Christians, “born again”. In the end, a
handful of carefully trained and highly developed individuals were
advanced into an elite priesthood which, through its adherence to
spiritual principles, maintained a balance that facilitated
the
functioning of Egyptian society. Their point of view had by now
changed. They no longer worked on spiritual progress for their own
sake, but for the benefit of the upward evolution of mankind. And
from their inner core, they were dispatched to different corners of
the known world to indirectly help the lesser developed advance
themselves, thereby assisting in the progress of humanity.
The Temple replicated the structure and spiritual principles of the
universe. The outer society replicated the Temple and its spiritual
principles, but in a form not articulated to the common people who
were not sufficiently developed to consciously understand, honour,
and fulfill its reality. Instead, by replicating the principles in
society, the average person was able to live in rhythm with the
principles and to become positively influenced by them, growing
through this process without making the total dedication and
sacrifice required of the elite core group.
The Egyptian pharonic concept represents the embodiment in the
person of pharaoh the highest principles and aspirations of the
society. The pharaoh was the outward representative of the Temple
principles and of the life of the entire society. He was supposed to
live life in the material world in compliance with the inner laws of
which the populace remained only vaguely conversant. The pharaoh was
supported and aided in this role by the inner and most highly
developed elite of the Temple priesthood. His dictums were executed
by a separate administrative arm.
It is difficult if not impossible for any group, no matter how
dedicated, to indefinitely sustain itself in accordance with
spiritual principles. Such organizations have a period of life in
which they create an expression suited to the times, accomplish the
mission and disappear to be succeeded in another time and place by a
successor organization suited to the expression of its times. During
the existence of any group, as individuals successively replace each
other from generation to generation, changes occur. Some are more
able than others, some less able than those who precede or follow
them. Human frailty sets in. Slight changes in even a highly
disciplined Temple system can have vast implications over time.
Alterations in the focus and dedication of those holding the
pharonic throne could divert the course of events. Embodying the
weathervane of a society or group is neither easy nor sustainable.
Gradually, systems and principles can deteriorate.
But over that same time period, the seeds of the future can also be
planted. Non-Egyptians were allowed to enter the Temple system. Some
advanced through the full training. Some returned back to their own
countries. This is the origin of the system called the Mysteries
which arose in the Mediterranean pre-Christian era as Egyptian
culture declined. The Mysteries appeared in a different form but
followed the same lines as the Temple system. It was the same
message, simply put into a different bottle, a bottle styled for the
people of Greece and the Mediterranean world. Similarly, the
Egyptian Temple system is undeniably the training ground for the
great Pythagoras and the system of knowledge that he spread through
ancient Greece and southern Europe.
The teachings of Pythagoras appeared differently as well. Styled in
a more modern form, they followed the same line as the Temple, but
less rigid. Still, they entailed an academy. A gradual system in
which the candidate advanced degree by degree toward a higher level
of mental and spiritual development. And an outward aspect as well,
a concern with the nature and direction of humanity, just like the
Temple system. Metaphorically, the superiority of the system of
knowledge that he represented is expressed by the parable of his
dying of starvation on the steps of the Temples of Muses.
While the Temple system was being disseminated to the north and east
of Egypt by Pythagoras, another Temple trained initiate followed a
similar path of preserving the initiatic knowledge. His name is
known to history as Moses. He aligned with an obscure people and
reconstituted their societal structure and belief system around the
Temple principles. By restructuring an entire ethnic people, he
insured that aspects of the Temple system would be preserved by this
insular group for generations, until its next reconstitution was
necessary in a form applicable to the requirements of that time.
Moses reconstituted the Temple system among the Jewish people
in a
manner stylized after the Egyptian model. A specific caste of
priests was physically organized around a Temple. The entire twelve
tribe system – itself a mystical anagram – focused on the Temple,
and the life of the nation centered on it, on their faith, and on a
specific identity as a people set apart, unique in God’s eyes, and
held together under a pharaoh-like king. Even the mystical Tree of
Life of the Kabbalah directly corresponds to the Egyptian
Neters.
The focus on their religion as the core of their existence gave the
Jewish people their unique identity and enabled them to survive the
cultural annihilation experienced by others. But it did not give
rise to the powerful spiritual current Moses had hoped. This vacuum
gave rise to the mission of the Essenes.
The Essenes, like the Templars, are a widely misunderstood spiritual
group. Subdivided into different groups and having members active
both in their monastic training ground at Qumram and throughout the
Jewish community in day to day living, from the headquarters at Mt.Carmel they were directed toward one specific goal – the preparation
of an entity sufficiently advanced to bear the higher consciousness
which would incarnate in the man known as Jesus. This particular
mission extended far beyond the concept of the messiah, which may be
loosely defined as the priest-king.
In the concept of the messiah is the
return of the pharaoh, the embodiment of the spiritual governing
principle in the day to day affairs of the state, but in the Essene
case it involves a particularly advanced consciousness carrying an
impulse to revive the spiritual facets of mankind. The pharonic
ideal also appeared throughout Europe, degenerating over time into
the present concept of royalty. Interestingly, all prophetic Jewish
literature except one book foretells and focuses on the coming of a
messiah.
For the Essenes, the mission was consuming. In an occult sense, the
entire organization focused on the incarnation of a spiritual being
who would alter humanity through the implantation of a spiritual
impulse. The documents of their training base at Qumram denote the
discipline that was expected to be extended in daily life. There is
little in the aspects of daily training in these documents that is
not in other spiritual schools. Their nature has assumed a special
character given that those men and women in the modern world
primarily responsible for studying these documents do not understand
the rudiments of the way in which individuals are trained to live in
society and reflect spiritual values, nor can they apprehend a
methodology so broad that it intends through deliberately indirect
actions the reformation of the entire society.
The name Essene has many interpretations. One of the most
interesting is “trowel”, the tool with which a mason works with
stone and mortar to create a building. The Essenes were masons,
building the house of God in themselves. By doing this, they were
working to help advance mankind. Ultimately, the mission of creating
the vessels adequate to sustain the spiritual capacity necessary for
the reformation of society was successful. The Essenes, their
mission completed, disappeared from history, most traces of their
existence obliterated by the different Jewish sects that opposed
them.
The start of the Christian era marked a singular turning point.
Prior to this time, many conflicting religious expressions of the
same ideals existed side by side. The Greek Mysteries are
allegorical representations of the Egyptian system. The rise of
various cults such as Sol Invictus, Mithras, and the
Roman system of
gods are all representations of the same group of principles. This
mass confusion was consolidated in the early years of the Christian
era as the Roman church proclaimed itself supreme and systematically
absorbed or annihilated its opposition, driving these movements into
extinction. But by these actions, the church created a widespread
common vocabulary and belief structure.
During this time, Pythagorean thought assumed an academic and
philosophical character and resurfaced later in Neo-Platonic ideals.
Plato’s ideals, often seen as observations derived from Athenian
society or a philosophical treatise, are really esoteric principles
expressed as the restoration of a balanced and spiritual order. As
opposed to blind obedience, man functions in an intellectual manner
driven by principles. But the outcome is still the same dream the
sages have held for centuries.
The manifestation of the esoteric movements took a different form in
the south of France in the 11th century with the group called
the Cathars. Before reviewing the Cathars, it is important to hold
everything preceding them in perspective to understand the change in
direction that begins its implementation with the Cathars and the
Templars. In Egypt, a highly structured elite imposed a regimented
society based on spiritual principles on a less enlightened humanity
to evolve their awareness. In Israel, an elite group worked to
affect a top down solution to promulgating spiritual principles, but
without rigidly structuring society. In the Pythagorean and Platonic
systems, a small group worked for the good of humanity, but without
rigidly structuring society and emphasizing the value of individual
intellectual reasoning capacity. Each of these directions
represented gradual steps toward the realization of the development
of human potential and individual freedom. Centuries later, humanity
would realize the benefits from the seeds planted by these groups.
The appearance of the Cathar movement is viewed by historians as the
rise of a new religion which jousted with Christianity for supremacy
and, like so many groups which have struggled with the Roman church,
lost. The Cathars are primarily known to us by relatively recent
works which interpret their story in light of our limited knowledge
of their activities. The Cathars are usually traced back to
the Bogomils and other groups. They are, in fact, only the same
principles, appearing again in the guise of the message of the
times. The Cathar priesthood, the Parfaits, were noted for their
unimpeachable conduct, purity, and dedication. They contrasted so
sharply with the corrupt Roman church that people flocked to them,
especially in the south of France. However, it is by their conduct
that we must see what they really are.
They seek by conduct to show men how to
change their daily lives. They do not proselytize. They do not
impair individual freedom. In fact, by standing in contradistinction
to the prevailing power of the predominate secular authority of the
time that imposed its will from top down, the Roman church, the Cathar parfaits encouraged among the common people the freedom of
individual choice. It is expressed by principles lived in action by
an elite priestly core which maintains focused spiritual values.
What survives of the Cathars today is distorted by people who think
the incomplete remnants of the misunderstood Cathar belief system is
the key. The key was their code of conduct. That is what attracted
followers, that is what made believers, that is what they
promulgated. Persecuted for forty years in the very first crusade,
hunted down, killed, and driven underground, they were succeeded by
three distinct movements, the Troubadours, the trade guilds, and the
orders of knighthood, particular the Knights Templar.
The Troubadours were a means through which the sages deliberately
intended to imbue man with an orientation toward putting spiritual
principles in action. Travelling minstrels, harmless singers of
songs, tellers of poetry, the Troubadours offered no overt threat to
the established power structure. They moved through all levels of
society, from royal courts to common taverns. Through their actions
and their travels the Troubadours began the seeds of the first
popular literature, of the beginning of a common popular
consciousness. They were the first to move ideals on a widespread
basis into the popular imagination. Through them, the legends of The
Grail and high spiritual ideals lived in action came into popular
consciousness. They became the vehicle for inspiring the popular
imagination.
The trade guilds held a simple task. They inspired a code of conduct
in daily living for the common people. A harmonious order was
established. That order constituted around discipline and respect
within the guild for members and for their work. Work itself became
a noble ethic to be valued. And because of the protection of the
Knights Templar, the guilds were spared from oppression by the
nobility. Under the unseen guidance of the secret orders, the road
up from slavery and serfdom had begun for the common people.
Before turning to an overview of the Templars it is significant to
note how key turning points have occurred in the transmission of the
esoteric spiritual message. It was first transmitted to an elite in
societies. The populace was given a highly simplified version. After
the consolidation of much of the West by Rome, it was transmitted
through role models. After the suppression of the Cathars, it was
spread through the means of ordinary society, not just to sustain an
elite, but in disguise, through and to every man. It reached into
their lives in songs, it touched their imaginations with inspiring
stories, and became principles in the lives of working men and the
foundation of the guilds. And all these principles were based on one
unifying ideal – the impulsion of proper spiritual principles and
their use in focusing day to day living to uplift the consciousness
of man so that he could evolve and fulfill his purpose and destiny.
The Knights Templar remain today the single greatest force for
turning the spiritual mind of the West. Many prominent occultists
have contended over the years that the beginning of the decline of
the West and of its spiritual dark age – the age of Kali Yuga –
started with the suppression of the Templars. Today it is
fashionable for writers and historians working from records left by
the Inquisition to charitably agree with the Inquisition that the Templars had become corrupt, that they had fallen from principles,
and to tacitly agree with some of the charges against them. These
conclusions are the reiteration of falsehoods promulgated by the
only keeper of information in its time,
the Roman church, to cover
up its own actions against the Templars, actions motivated by church
and French leaders’ greed for the Templars’ wealth.
To review how the Templars worked in the world is not possible
within the confines of this space. But a summary of a handful of
their accomplishments clearly reveals its purposes and the workings
of a genuine esoteric organization. Like the Essenes and every other
genuine group, a core inner order actually provided the Templars
with their spiritual impetus and direction. But by bridging all
worlds of their time – spiritual and material, nobility and common
man, religious and military, commerce and contemplation, Christian,
Jewish, and Islamic – the Templars moved the entire course of
history.
These activities marked another turning point in history.
While their inner order worked esoterically on spiritual
self-development, everything they did was an action in the world of
its time directed at impacting the day to day lives of people in a
positive and transformative way. Their goal and mission was the
transformation of all of society, and nothing less. But their method
was to work through the key aspects influencing the society of their
time in order to inject spiritual principles in daily life and plant
the seeds for future change.
The best description written of the activities of the Templars
remains:
“The mission of the Knights Templar
was two-fold. Firstly, to inject a certain spiritualism idealism
into the world of their time through a number of concrete
actions. Secondly, to insure the continuity of the Spiritual
Tradition of the Temple by seeking out the sacred esoteric
heritage of mankind wherever it was to be found, to reunite it,
and to present to a certain spiritual elite a synthesis of the
Tradition adapted to the Western mentality of the Middle Ages.”
(3)
The Templars mode of action was uniquely
suited to their times. It moved at one and the same time on multiple
levels because it was practical, pragmatic, and designed to create
immediate effects. But it also created an atmosphere which carefully
sowed the seeds for long term future changes on material and
spiritual levels. In this regard a few concrete actions of the Templars are particularly worth noting.
The Templars sponsored the building of churches, chapels, and great
cathedrals across Europe. Templar churches embodied in them certain
esoteric geometric and mathematical principles that create a
transformative effect on worshippers. The effect subliminally led
more people to experience the value of the spiritual on their
everyday lives. At the same time, cathedral building had a positive
economic impact on the overpopulated and impoverished European
society. Churches and cathedrals dedicated to the Templar patron,
the Virgin, promoted the feminine principle of spirituality, and,
again subliminally, raised the oppressed status of women in society
by providing a female role model for veneration.
The Templars created a new class in society. They raised up the
common man by protecting the working masons and sponsoring the first
genuine, independent movement of the trade guilds, the Compagnons de
Saint Devoir (the Companions of the Rule of Holy Duty), who built
the Templar sponsored churches and cathedrals. These trade groups,
formally placed under Templar protection sometime around 1145,
created an internal hierarchy, taught codes of personal conduct and
ethical values to the illiterate craftsmen, provided sources of
income, protected widows and orphans of members, and created through
the graded craftsman system a hierarchy similar to the discipline in
an esoteric order. In a network of houses in various parts of every
country through which apprentices travelled and worked, common
manners and fair play were instilled, and a sense of common, shared
interests was developed. From their contacts with the Eastern
initiates and esoteric schools of the Middle East, the Templars
imparted to the master tradesmen certain secrets of geometry and
mathematics for incorporation into the cathedrals, thereby raising
the consciousness of the trade class.
The guild houses eventually evolved into the Masonic lodge systems,
and the shared sense of values created the concept of a unified
society of the working man. In addition to creating a sense of
self-worth among the individual members, this system was the
beginning of the first principles of equal rights for all. After the
suppression of the Templars, the Compagnons were persecuted for many
centuries. But when the plague swept through Europe and decimated
the population, the longer term impact was the elimination of
European overpopulation that had created a surplus of labour and
resultant poverty.
By protecting the guilds from oppression
by the nobility and the church, the Templars left in place a
mechanism that insured both a cohesive structure within plague
decimated common society and a body which spoke on behalf of the
common people. It allowed the standard of living to rise and the
basis for a new way of life to begin. The feudal system waned,
replaced by new centers of power. And, indirectly, the course of
society and the evolution of consciousness expanded. Principled but
indirect stimuli often have far reaching results. As the modern
writer and statesman Vaclav Havel noted during his own
seemingly impossible struggle against Communist authoritarianism,
“Even a purely moral act that has no
hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually
and indirectly, over time, gain in political influence.”
The umbrella of Templar action extended
beyond the working tradesmen. The Templars were originally said to
be founded to protect travellers on their way to Jerusalem. The
protection of travellers to the holy place was a metaphor for
providing the spiritual means to higher knowledge. But one reason
the Templars became widely venerated by the common people was
because their network of European commandaries actually did make
travel on the roads safer for the peasants. Heretofore, the common
people enjoyed no protection from incessant road bandits or
pillaging nobility.
The protection of the European roadways
not only facilitated the safe movement of commerce. It was the first
truly widespread societal benefit enjoyed by all classes of society.
For the first time, a commoner enjoyed the same protection as
nobility. Once a seed of equality is planted and assumed as a given
by any society as a whole, the process of eventual transformation is
assured. By becoming an independent force on which every part of
society could depend, the Templars sowed the seeds for the concept
of common standards for all in society and governance.
Much has been made of the fact that the Templars virtually invented
international banking when they became a repository of royal
treasuries, the executor of wills, and the financiers of kingdoms,
and became fabulously wealthy as a result. Seen in a different
light, it has never been noted that for the first time there existed
through the Templars a common source of trust and justice. Royalty
could be assured their treasuries would not be pillaged. They could
travel safely from location to location without fear of robbery and
knew that they could secure funds at any Templar preceptory along
the way.
They could be assured that heirs would
not deprive each other of their inheritance, because the Templars
would enforce will provisions fairly. And commoners with possessions
could be assured that Templars would execute their wills justly,
prevent their possessions from being usurped by the nobles, or even
care for their children in the event of their deaths. Again, this
was the first widespread standard of unimpeachable fairness
available to all levels of society, a singular force on which people
from all walks of life could depend. From these actions eventually
grew the ideal that justice could be fair and serve all.
The Templars also impacted the concept of government. They were both
advisors to kings and adversaries of the tyrannical use of royal
power. One of the most famous encounters between royalty and the
Templars occurred when English King Henry III attempted to upbraid
the Master of the Temple in England and was instead bluntly
countered, in modern terms,
“Be careful what you say King. For if
you cease to rule with justice, you will cease to be King.”
What
royalty and the church, and later historians, would decry in this
exchange as Templar arrogance, was in fact an assertion of the
rights of society against the abusive power of royalty. The Master
of the Temple in England would later be witness to the signing of
the Magna Carta and a behind the scenes force in its creation and
execution. Similarly, by fighting for the freedom of the small
border kingdoms of Aragon, Navarre, and Mallorca from Muslim forces
and aligning with those kingdoms, the Templars insured the existence
of smaller independent and more liberal states.
Lastly, the Templars provided a covert bridge that had not
previously existed to other faiths. Generations of historians have
failed to comprehend that the accusations of Templar familiarity
with Islamic and Jewish sects represented not the religious
“corruption and betrayal” of which their enemies accused them, but
rather the specific mission of attempting to regenerate a
commonality of knowledge and respect of beliefs – which happens to
be characteristic of modern religious tolerance. By their very
existence, the orders of chivalry, and specifically the Templars,
paved the way for the Renaissance – thus the ideals stirred by the
Troubadours became physically embodied by the orders of knighthood.
Through the orders of chivalry, the idealized Troubadour poetry
became a manifest reality. It demonstrated that the highest ideals
which inspired men could in fact become a living reality, that the
concept of the Grail quest could became a genuine, worldly search
for the spiritual and a way of life.
By the start of the 14th century the secret orders had moved from
working with a small spiritual elite to a hidden vanguard which
worked quietly in society. The emphasis each esoteric group made in
their lifecycles of approximately 200 years foreshadowed the major
next step in human progress and evolution. The ideals and energy put
into motion by the orders of knighthood soon came to flower in the
Renaissance.
In Italy the influence of the esoteric on many of the leading noble
families became a primary motivation for the explosion of learning
and culture that became known as the Renaissance. Through the
sponsorship of families like the Medicis, learning – new modes of
thought and the rediscovery of ancient wisdom – returned to become a
valued world distinctly apart from the province of the church, as in
ancient Greece.
In the Renaissance, the ideal of the Platonic reformation of society
took root. Through the wealth of key Renaissance families, art was
sponsored, books rediscovered, and esoteric principles applied in
the cultural aspects of life, from creating a rich fabric of meaning
in a garden, to promoting the translation of the Corpus Hermeticum.
For the first time, the implementation of esoteric ideals was openly
through the medium of families who remained fully engaged in
everyday life. They sponsored activities influencing mundane
existence. They injected the concept of beauty and harmony into
their residences and surroundings. Architecture and music again
became important and vital. Even gardens (e.g. the Boboli Gardens)
became expressions of the esoteric ideals of beauty, harmony, and
balance, inspiring the renaissance and infusing society. The
esoteric mission of the Templars to bring a moribund society back to
life with new ideas and spiritual principles finally flourished, 180
years after their demise.
Cultural figures took the lead in this revival. Marsilio Ficino
strongly influenced the rebirth of Platonic and esoteric ideals and
teachings. At Villa Carreggi, outside Florence, Ficino actually
started a Platonic academy under the sponsorship of Cosimo De
Medici. However, it was Giorgio Gemistos, long forgotten to history,
who was the hidden hand moving the Renaissance to fruition by
providing the inspiration for Medici’s actions. An occultist and
sage council, Gemistos met Medici in 1437 when Gemistos attended the
ecumenical council of Florence/Ferrara as the unofficial advisor to
the Greek delegation.
During this council he spent time with
Medici. His inspired vision of transforming religion and culture
through a spiritual revival led Medici to redirect his own life. He
began a fervent pursuit of the translation and introduction of
classical texts and metaphysical ideas to vivify every aspect of
life. The objective of this work was nothing less than the
transformation of the life of man and its orientation toward a
spiritual way of living through inspiring the cultural elements of
society. From the Platonic academy and the esoteric lodges of Italy,
waves of creativity and new expressions surged across Europe,
imbuing all levels of society with new ideas and planting the seeds
for future changes.
In England, in the light of the Renaissance and inspired by esoteric
orders spanning the English Channel and connecting Britain and the
continent, an academy called “The Temple” arose at Gorhambury,
becoming an influence on the future course of the West. Originally
under the direction of Sir Nicholas Bacon, it became focused around
his adopted son, Francis, along with another esoteric academy
founded at Mortlake by
John Dee. Trained from youth for his work and
initiated and trained in an esoteric lodge in France, the full
impact of Bacon and the lodge that worked around him has not yet
been fully realized.
Together with a group of men representing all key facets of the
society of his time,
Francis Bacon wrote the plays attributed to
Shakespeare
and took the interesting multi-dimensional symbol of Pallas Athena,
the spear shaker, as an image in works published under his own name.
The entire structure of the Shakespearean plays are based on
principles in esoteric teachings. This is why they have had such an
enduring appeal. They were a message styled to the common man.
The design of even the Globe Theatre was
an embodiment of the esoteric principles. Bacon and his group sought
to reintroduce the proper use of the intellect in reasoning through
his essays and attempts to reform institutions, to redirect the
ancient dialectic methods to a tool which could be, like the plays,
accessed by anyone. Of equal and often overlooked importance, the
group introduced the reformation of the English language as a
vehicle for the transmission of esoteric and cultural concepts. They
firmly planted a series of ideals in English culture that
eventually, through England’s global colonies, began a far reaching
transformation beyond the confines of Europe.(4)
Attempts during this era to establish a Republic such as the Palantate
in Bohemia, and the little studied activities of John Dee
in Bohemia to reform religious activities, did not meet with
success. But the ideals widely established through these activities
and the concurrent issuance of Rosicrucian pamphlets fired a wide
imagination in society and, according to some academic sources, most
likely led to the period known as the Enlightenment.(5)
Throughout history, slowly, step by step, the process of
transforming humanity has been gradually aided by the activities of
positive esoteric societies. The actions of positive groups have
resulted in benefits realized sometimes generations later in
society. Most interestingly, to the students of these groups and of
the ebb and flow of history, they seem to be acting in anticipation
of the next advancement necessary in human evolution. For some time
now, the activities of these organizations have appeared quiet,
depending perhaps on the fruition of past efforts to create a
positive movement in humanity or awaiting a new impetus from their
own core.
The trend of worldwide culture for the last 200 years has inexorably
been moving toward the enhanced concept of individual freedom.
Today, with some exceptions, we live in a world in which individual
freedom is often taken for granted. The options of free will and
choice by individuals are becoming a driving force. Now, even
commerce and technology have joined to accelerate this evolutionary
step as free market economies, the Internet, and broadband
technologies will soon bring to people across the globe previously
undreamed of options for working, learning, communicating, and
participating.
Yet, in this time, the stakes in the essential struggle of the
spirit have become higher than ever. The conflict between light and
dark is more subtle, the struggle less overt, but the future
consequences of our personal actions will be higher than ever
because of the variety of choices and the possibility to exercise
self-indulgence through the vehicles of technology and commerce
without restraint or discernment. The outcome of this struggle, to
determine whether or not man will sink into self-indulgent
materialism or rise above it to create a truly better world, is far
from certain.
It no longer depends on others, but on
ourselves. We can actively work to become more spiritual, thereby
transforming ourselves and the material world and successfully
realizing what generations of initiates have dreamed of and worked
toward, or we can choose to work to materialize and dull the
spiritual aspect of man into haziness until it is ultimately lost.
The choice of which future we actively wish to create is now man’s
individual responsibility, and the result of that choice and of our
actions will ultimately be our legacy to future generations.
Footnotes
1. Paraphrased from Michael
Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln in Holy Blood, Holy
Grail (New York: Delacorte Press, 1982).
2. For more esoteric studies of Egypt, the reader is
referred to the works of R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz.
3. Gaetan DelaForge. The Templar Tradition in the Age of
Aquarius (Putney, Vt.:Threshold Books, 1987), p. 63.
4. For a more detailed study of this period, the reader
is referred to the works of the Francis Bacon Research Trust.
5. For more information on this period and the seeds it
sowed, the reader is referred to Francis A Yates, The
Rosicrucian Enlightenment (London and New York: Ark, 1986).
|