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Fifteen Rosicrucian and Qabbalistic Diagrams

IN his well-known work, The Rosicrucians, Their Rites and Mysteries, Hargrave Jennings reproduces five Qabbalistic charts which he declares to be genuine Rosicrucian drawings. He gives no information concerning their origin nor does he attempt an elucidation of their symbolism. A recent writer who reproduced one of these charts correlated it to the emblematic tomb of Father C.R.C., thus exposing the true nature of Christian Rosencreutz.

The five plates reproduced in Hargrave Jennings' book are part of a series of fifteen diagrams which appear in The Magical, Qabbalistical, and Theosophical Writings of Georgius von Welling, on the Subject of Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury. This extremely rare volume was published at Frankfort and Leipzig in 1735 and 1760. The numbers and figures on the charts refer to the chapters and sections of the Writings. These fifteen charts constitute a remarkable and invaluable addition to the few other known admittedly authentic Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian diagrams.

Context

Georgius von Welling's Opus Mago-Cabalisticum et Theosophicum (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1735 and 1760) is one of the more obscure but influential Christian-Kabbalistic works of the early eighteenth century. Goethe owned a copy and is said to have studied it during his alchemical phase in 1768-1770, when his Frankfurt circle was reading hermetic and Pietist literature. Welling's work is one of the principal sources for German Christian Kabbalah on the eve of the Enlightenment, alongside Knorr von Rosenroth's Kabbala Denudata (1677-1684) and Christian Knorr's Adumbratio Kabbalae Christianae. Hargrave Jennings's republication of five of the fifteen diagrams in his The Rosicrucians, Their Rites and Mysteries (1870) introduced them to nineteenth-century English-speaking esoteric readers — Hall is working from Jennings and Welling together.Welling, Opus Mago-Cabalisticum (1735); Goethe scholarship: Hans-Georg Kemper.

Lucifer is the greatest mystery of symbolism. The secret knowledge of the Rosicrucians concerning Lucifer is nowhere so plainly set forth as in these plates, which virtually reveal his true identity, a carefully guarded secret about which little has been written. Lucifer is represented by the number 741.

Insight

Welling's identification of Lucifer with the number 741 and his treatment of Lucifer as central to the cosmology is the controversial element of his system. The number derives from a gematria operation Welling performs on specific Hebrew terms; the cosmological role assigned to Lucifer — not as pure evil but as the inverted reflection of the divine outflow, in whom the divine light is concentrated before it irradiates the zodiacal hierarchies — is closer to Boehmean theosophy (where the Lucifer-fall is the precondition of manifest creation) than to standard Lutheran demonology. The Boehmean tradition through Pordage, Lead, and Welling reads Lucifer's role with a metaphysical complexity that orthodox theology resisted. Hall is reporting the Welling system faithfully; readers should know it represents one strand of Christian theosophy, not Christian doctrine generally.Welling, Opus Mago-Cabalisticum; Böhme, Mysterium Magnum on Lucifer.

Von Welling does not give a complete exposition of the fifteen charts; to have done so would have been contrary to the principles of Qabbalistic philosophy. The deeper significance of the symbols is revealed only by profound study and contemplation.

TABLE I, Figures 1-11. Figure 1 is a Ptolemaic chart showing the true relationship existing between the primordial elements. Its secret significance is as follows: The outer ring enclosed by the lines A and B is the region of Schamayim, a Qabbalistic name for the Supreme Deity, signifying the expanse of the heavens, or a spiritual fiery water. Schamayim is "The Ocean of Spirit, " within which all created and uncreated things exist and by the life of which they are animated. In the lower worlds Schamayim becomes the astral light.

Insight

Schamayim — Welling's term for the supreme divine ocean from which all creation flows — is the Hebrew shamayim (heavens), often interpreted in kabbalistic etymology as compounded from esh (fire) and mayim (water), the union of opposites in the divine. The reading 'fiery water' or 'spiritual fiery water' is from medieval Jewish mystical etymology, transmitted to Christian Hermeticism through Reuchlin's De Arte Cabalistica (1517) and Pico della Mirandola's 900 Theses (1486). The notion that Schamayim becomes astral light in the lower worlds is Welling's overlay of Paracelsian-Theosophical doctrine of the sidereal light onto the kabbalistic emanationist scheme. The whole system is one of the more elaborate Christian-Kabbalistic syntheses of its period.Reuchlin, De Arte Cabalistica (1517); Pico, 900 Theses (1486).

The space between B and C marks the orbits or planes of the seven Spiritual Intelligences called the Divine Planets (not the visible planets). According to the Mysteries, the souls of men enter the lower worlds through ring B, the fixed stars. All creation reflects the glory of Schamayim, the energy that filters into the spheres of the elements through the windows of the stars and planets. Between C and D lies the region of the subtle, spiritual air, a subdivision of ether. D to E marks the surface of the earth and sea, by which are also meant grades of ether. E to F marks the lower region, called "The Gathering of the Waters and the Production of the Virgin Earth, " or "Ares. " The alchemists called this "quicksand," the true mystic foundation of the solid earth.

F to G marks the circle of the subterranean air, which is more dense and coarse than that in the outer space, C to D. In this denser atmosphere the stellar influences and celestial impulses are crystallized into corporeal spirits, thus forming the multitude of forms which exist without knowledge of their own fiery source. G is the region of the central fire of the element earth, a coarse fire in contradistinction to the divine fiery Schamayim. The sphere of the starry heavens likewise has its opposite in the sphere of the subterranean air; and the sphere of the upper air (or subtle vaporous water) has its opposite in the sphere E to F.

The focal point, D to E, between the three higher and the three lower spheres, is called "The Reservoir." It receives impressions from both the superior and the inferior regions and is common to both.

Figure 2 is the Qabbalistic symbol of elemental water; Figure 9 represents the spiritual invisible water. Figure 3 is the Qabbalistic symbol of elemental air; Figure 7 represents the spiritual and invisible air. Figure 4 is the Qabbalistic sign of the elemental earth; Figure 8 represents the spiritual and invisible earth. Figure 5 is the Qabbalistic sign of the elemental fire; Figure 6 represents the spiritual and invisible fire. Figures 6, 7, 8, and 9 symbolize the four elements before the descent of Lucifer. They are the four rivers spoken of in Genesis, having their source in the one river, Figure W, which represents the elements superimposed on one another. The golden ball in the center is Schamayim, the fiery source of all elements. Figure 11 is the emblem of the beginning and the end of all creatures. From it all things proceed and to it all must return again, to become one with the fiery water of divine understanding.

TABLE II, Figures 12-51. Figures 12, 13, 14 demonstrate the sphere as a symbol of motion to be emblematic of fire, water, and air; and the cube as a symbol of weight to be emblematic of earth. The sphere rests upon a point, the cube upon a surface; the sphere is therefore used to symbolize spirit, and the cube, matter. Figure 14 demonstrates that atmosphere rushing in behind a falling object increases its velocity and apparently adds to its weight. The essential nature of each element is occultly signified by the peculiar symbol and character assigned to it.

Of Figure 15, the symbol of salt, von Welling writes, in substance: The cube has six sides, corresponding to the six days of creation, with the point of rest (the seventh day) in the center of the cube. On each surface of the cube appear the signs of the four elements [triangles]. The alchemists declared that salt was the first created substance produced by the fire (Schamayim) which flowed out of God. In salt all creation is concentrated; in salt are the beginning and end of all things. The cube, furthermore, is composed of twelve bodies, each of which has six sides. These bodies are the twelve fundamental pillars of the true invisible church, and when these twelve bodies are multiplied by their six sides the magical number 72 results.

The wise have said that nothing is perfect until it has been dissolved, separated, and again united so that it becomes a body composed of twelve bodies, like the cube. The cube also consists of six pyramids with the six surfaces of the cube as their bases. The points of these six pyramids meet at the center of the cube. These six pyramids, each consisting of four triangles, signify the elements, and produce the magical number 24, which refers to the Elders before the Throne. The six surfaces and the point constitute the magical number 7.

If 7 be multiplied by 7 again, and so on 7 times, the answer will reveal the method used by the ancients for measuring the periods of eternity; thus: (1) 7 X 7 = 49; (2) 49 X 7 = 343; (3) 343 X 7 = 2,401; (4) 2,401 X 7 = 16,807; (5):16,807 X 7 = 117,649; (6) 117,649 X 7 = 823,543; (7) 823,543 X 7 = 5,764,801. (This is not to be taken as earth years or times.) The 5,000, 000 represents the great hall year; the 700,000 the great Sabbath year, wherein all human beings gradually gain true understanding and become heirs to their original and eternal inheritance, which was lost when they were enmeshed in the lower elements. The 64,800 is the number of the fallen angels, and the last one year signifies the liberation of Lucifer and return to his original estate.

Figure 16 is another symbol of salt, while Figure 17 (the dot) is the sign of spirit, gold, the sun, or the germ of life. If the dot be moved before itself it becomes a line, Figure 18. This motion of the dot is the first motion. The beginning and end of every line is a dot. Figure 19 is the circle. It is the second motion and the most perfect of all lines. Out of it are formed all figures and bodies imaginable. Figure 20 represents the outpouring of the upper and spiritual life into manifestation. Figure 21 represents darkness, for it is the loosening of the subterrene destructive principle. Figure 20 is also the symbol of day, and Figure 21 of night.