Individuals who transformed society by introducing new ideas are the links in the chain of the human story. We are not taught to think of history as being influenced by hidden forces and secret brotherhoods, but rather by individuals who where bold enough to march their inner thoughts outside into the battlefield of public discourse. However, when we zoom in on the bold figures who changed history, we find that many believe themselves to be agents of just such secret brotherhoods.
To this day, when covert methods of directing history through secret associations are discussed, echoes of the term “Illuminati” are soon to follow. This title was brought to public notoriety when the inner workings of the Bavarian Illuminati were exposed to the public. Conspiracy theories about a secret society plotting a global reformation are not far off from the stated goals of the Illuminati. This order was in fact one of many who shared the goal of a new social order transcending the nation states of the Ancien Régime (old order). This dream was not shared by the reactionary rival of the Illuminati, the Order of the Gold & Rosy Cross. Both orders used similar methods of infiltrating the existing establishment with their agents, the Gold & Rosy Cross wanted to place one of their own on the the throne and establish a theocracy based on their esoteric gnostic Christianity. While they did succeed in placing their agents in high places, that is outside of the scope of this essay, the main character of which I will now introduce.
Karl Von Eckartshausen was caught in the middle of this schism between revolutionary and reactionary secret societies. He left the Illuminati after several years membership and began to work against it and the German enlightenment as a whole. He even used his position as an archivist for the Bavarian government to turn authorities against the Illuminati. (Christopher McIntosh, The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason, 108-109) This has lead scholars to speculate that he was a member of the Gold & Rosy Cross. While this cannot be proven, he certainly shared their anti-enlightenment stance, their fixation on Alchemy, and their mystical gnostic Christianity. However Eckartshausen is not remembered for the position he took in the division of secret societies, rather he is remembered for shining light on their unity.
Eckartshausen is best known for writing a book about the true secret brotherhood that exists beyond the individual secret societies and stands above them all in rank. The true Illuminati, the enlightened ones who are united above the morals and dogma that men are divided over, working entirely in secret towards ends that will not be fulfilled in their earthly lives. He claims that the various occult orders of his time are simply branches of this inner order, writing “the way that the innumerable rays of light surround the center of a circle, so it is with the mysteries that surround a single truth.” In the esoteric tradition there is a persisting idea that the leaders of the various known secret societies are united by membership a brotherhood that is never named. They have been called “The Secret Chiefs”, “The Unknown Superiors”, and “The Round Table” in various traditions. Eckartshausen calls them “The Hidden Church” and he elucidates their work vividly in his magnum opus The Cloud Upon The Sanctuary.
When discussing hidden wisdom that this order guards, Eckartshausen uses explicitly Masonic language, (triple word, workman, cornerstone) alluding to the notion that Freemasonry is merely an outer shell of this Hidden Church:
“We assure you that our treasures, though of infinite value, are concealed in the so simple a manner that they entirely baffle the researches of opinionated science, and also, though these treasures would bring to carnal minds both madness and sorry, never the less, they are, and they remain to us, the treasures of the highest wisdom. My best blessing upon you, oh my brothers, if you understand these great truths. The recovery of the triple word and its power will be your reward. Your happiness will be in having the strength to help reunite man with man, mans nature with god, which is the real work of every workman who has not rejected the cornerstone.”
The secret possessed by this hidden church is what Eckartshausen calls “The Royal Art”, Alchemy, which he sees as the key to creation itself, giving those who weild its power a divine royal status:
“The Royal Art hinted at in these letters is well called royal, as it is neither more nor less than a close imitation, under the inspiration of Gods wisdom, of the creative power itself, or rather, the recreation of man back to his original royal standpoint.”
He writes that the knowledge of the Royal Art is heavily guarded and only allowed into the hands of those who will use it “in accordance with the grand objects and intentions” of the Hidden Church:
“Many pious men, seekers after God, have been regenerated in the mind and will, but few have known the corporeal rebirth. This last has been attained but by few men, and those to whom it has been given, have only received it, that they might serve as agents of God, in accordance with the grand objects and intentions, and to bring humanity nearer to holicity.”
The title of the books refers to the clouds that block one from perceiving the sanctuary and becoming “receptive of God even in this world.” This cloud is lifted by the “awakening of the organ” of inward sense:
“‘It is possible by seeking inwardly to approach the essential wisdom, and this wisdom is Jesus Christ, who is also the essence of Love within us.’ The truth of this statement can be experimentally proved by anyone, the condition of the experience being the awakening within us of a spiritual faculty cognizing spiritual objects as objectively and naturally as the outward senses perceive natural phenomena… The awakening of the organ is the lifting of the cloud from the sanctuary, enabling our hearts to become receptive of God even in this world. The knowledge of these mysteries has been always preserved by an advanced school, illuminated inwardly by the savior, and continued from the beginning of things to the present time. This community is the invisible celestial church, founded immediately after the fall.” (“Immediately after the fall” implies that it was initiated by the serpent who tempted man & woman to eat of the forbidden fruit, making them “as gods”)
This small book has had a profound influence on western esotericism. The concept of the Hidden Church was incorporated into other influential Masonic orders such as the Asiatic Brethren, about whom A.E. Waite writes “The Order comes therefore before us as that of a Hidden Church or Holy Assembly, ex hypothesi like that of Eckartshausen, but passing into substituted manifestation by virtue of its ceremonial workings.”
The most famous, and infamous, figure to praise this book and work it into his own teachings was none other than Aleister Crowley, who claimed that this book inspired his occult career, writing that “It was this book which first made me aware if the existence if a secret assembly of saints, and determined me to devote my whole life, without keeping back the least imaginable thing, to the purpose of making myself worthy to enter that circle.”
While Crowley did not share the Christian religiosity of Eckarshausen, he was infatuated with his writings, after all, religions are simply “rays of light” that surround the “single truth” in the center. Crowley would adopt this concept of The Hidden Church and apply it to his own secret order, The A.:.A.:., which he claimed to be the modern manifestation of the Illuminati and the most direct path to “The Secret Chiefs.” He reworded The Cloud Upon The Sanctuary and published it as “Liber 33: An Account of the A.:.A.:.,” which begins with the disclaimer “First written in the language of his period by the Councillor Von Eckartshausen and now revised and rewritten in the Universal Cipher.” This simply means that Crowley removed the Christian language, which he dismissed as “the language of his period,” using the language of “the new aeon” in its place. The title “L.V.X,” a formula from The Golden Dawn, meaning “Light,” replaced any reference to Jesus Christ. Crowley attempted to paint the picture that this order has been guiding human evolution all along, and the great men who influenced history were agents of this Hidden Church. He writes that “it is the most hidden of communities, yet it contains members from many circles; nor is there any Centre of Thought whose activity is not due to the presence of one of ourselves.” In this excerpt of Liber 33 we see how Crowley depicts everyone from the Prophet Muhammad to Martin Luther as agents of this Illuminated community who took “political strategic action” to bring humanity closer to the one truth, but did not complete the mission, the most recent prophet of this truth, of course, being Crowley himself:
Eckartshausen would most certainly cringe to see his work plagiarized in such a blasphemous way, but hopefully by now my work has shown that these themes transcend religious and political dogma. While secret societies often conflict in their attempts at “political strategic action,” they all share the vision of “a theocratic republic which one day will be the regent mother of the whole world,” as stated by Eckartshausen here:
“We must not, however regard it as a secret society, meeting at certain times, choosing its elders and members, and united by special objects, for even the chief does not invariably know all the members, and those who are ripe are joined to the general members when they thought least likely, and at a point of which they knew nothing. The society forms a theocratic republic which one day will be the regent mother of the whole world.”
Notes:
Eckartshausen’s book Catechisms of Higher Chemistry
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