‘Natural Table translation is out’

     
Big news from the irrepressible Piers. He has translated this historic text, and has made it available to you. From the publicity:

Courtesy Piers Vaughan

I’m delighted to announce that Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin’s second book, Natural Table, is now published and available.

First published in 1782, seven years after Of Errors & Truth, Saint-Martin was still a Freemason and avid follower of Pasqually and his teachings, even though his Master had died years earlier, and the Elus Cohen was almost defunct. This book shows how he continued to develop the Theosophy, and this great image of God, Man, and the Universe examines Pasqually’s theology from ancient mythology and the Old Testament. He continues to the advent of Christ, whom he called the Repairer, and continues to the Apocalypse. We also should remember that this work was published in the same year as the Convent of Wilhelmsbad, at which Jean-Baptiste Willermoz received authority to rework the Order of Strict Observance into the Scottish Rectified Rite, forever preserving Pasqually’s teachings in one of most sublime Masonic Orders of all.

It’s available in hardcover and paperback, and at a discount for now, so act fast!
     

‘New Light on the Golden Dawn’

     
This just in from the Rose Circle Research Foundation:

Magpie file photo

Christopher McIntosh

On March 18, 2017, Rose Circle Fellow Christopher McIntosh will speak at our spring symposium in New York City, delivering a most disruptive lecture titled “New Light on the Golden Dawn.”

In the founding of the 19th century English occult society the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a key role was played by an alleged German Rosicrucian adept called Fräulein Anna Sprengel, who had the magical motto Sapiens Dominabitur Astris (the wise person overcomes their stars). In this lecture, historian Christopher McIntosh will reveal a sensational discovery that he made about Fräulein Sprengel, and will speak on its significance in the history of the Golden Dawn.

I believe this most likely will take place at Masonic Hall, but I’ll certainly share all details as they become known.
     

‘Rose Circle 2011’

     

Yes, that’s correct, 2011! I cannot even comprehend that five years have passed since this stellar event in New York City took place, but this Flashback Friday edition of The Magpie Mason does indeed reach back exactly to February 26, 2011, when the Rose Circle Research Foundation hosted Christopher McIntosh and Steve Burkle for invaluable talks on Rosicrucianism and Alchemy, with David Lindez doing a great job as emcee.

Here’s the catch: While I know I still have my notes from this conference somewhere at Magpie headquarters, I can’t put my hands on them easily. The notebook will turn up, as it does every so often, and I will update this post with information from those notes, but for now here is my photographic record from the Renaissance Room in Masonic Hall. A partial record. I shot more than 160 photos during the event, but these are among the most colorful. Others show some PowerPoint projections that simply do not belong on the web, so there’s that.

Some of the architecture of the Renaissance Room at Masonic Hall, the headquarters of the Grand Lodge of New York, Free and Accepted Masons. 

This is the northwest corner of the lodge room, looking to the ceiling, with pipe organ at left.

I do not recall how Jason appeared at the lectern—
but I am sure he has a good reason for it!

Steve Burkle was the first of the two speakers to address the audience. I have forgotten the title of his presentation, but he discussed aspects of the practical application of spiritual alchemy concepts, among other things, to wit:

And Steve always works a fish story into his lectures!

Seriously, he is one of the best speakers around.

David Lindez stepped ‘unto the breach,’ as it were, to serve as master of ceremonies, providing comment and context to the proceedings. (I have my moments in public speaking. Sometimes I am coherent. Sometimes I can see that I grabbed the audience. I would never attempt to emcee a Rose Circle conference.)

That is Gene and Phillipe in the rear. Don’t know the gentlemen in front.

Here are Sam and Bob from New Jersey.

I regret not knowing the names of this couple because
they are regulars at Rose Circle events.

Geoffrey from Old No. 2.

Mario, Sr. and Mario, Jr.

Michael and Joe.

Henry at center, with Richard and Nick behind him.

The incomparable Janet Wintermute perusing the index of McIntosh’s
book. (If I didn’t use her full name, she’d kill me.)

To be a fly on the wall of that room.

I don't recall how many attended the conference,
but it pretty much was a sold out affair.

Dr. Christopher McIntosh spoke on ‘Rosicrucianism and the Search for a New World Order,’ which was based on his book The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason, an utterly mind-roasting history of early European Rosicrucianism and its effects on society. The text had been published a second time since 1992 just weeks before this conference, bringing down the retail price of the book from more than $1,000 to around twenty bucks or so.

Equipment, such as mic stands, is unavoidable, but
sometimes it can drive a photographer nuts.

I’m afraid I don’t know the gentleman with the microphone,
but that’s the inimitable Jonny Clockworks at left.

Never mind McIntosh, Burkle, and Lindez (although David’s
devilish smile is priceless), look at that room!

Oscar Alleyne. All this time I didn’t realize
I had such a good photo of him on file.

You have to appreciate an audience member who drafts his questions on the pages of his own notebook (to say nothing of coordinating his sport jacket with said notebook) in preparation for the Q&A!

David and Piers A. Vaughan. Sorry to say the Rose Circle
website store is sold out of those ties!

Piers, our president, makes Christopher a Fellow in the Rose Circle.

And—sigh—it’s over.

     

‘Rose Circle: alchemy in the Hermetic tradition’

     

I haven’t been able to say this in a long time, so it gives me great pleasure to tell you the Rose Circle Research Foundation has a new event scheduled for next week in New York City. From the publicity:

Rose Circle Research Foundation Presents

Spiritual Alchemical Bodies

in the Hermetic Tradition

presented by Tommy Westlund

of Stockholm, Sweden

Saturday, October 24

2 p.m.

Masonic Hall

71 West 23rd Street

Manhattan

$25 per person, in advance, available here

Tommy Westlund is a trained therapist in psychosynthesis, and since 1990 has pursued studies and research in esotericism and the Western Hermetic tradition. With an academic background in psychology, the history of religion, and the history of ideas, he writes and lectures internationally on esotericism, alchemy, Golden Dawn, gnosticism, Martinism, and Freemasonry.

Tommy Westlund

He is one of the founders of the initiatic Order of the Sodalitas Rosae+Crucis & Solis Alati, which perpetuates many of the old esoteric currents and Hermetic filiations of Europe, and he is director of the Swedish Alchemical Academy, which offers alchemical courses, workshops, travels, and literature.

Tommy holds the highest degree (X°) in the Swedish Rite of Freemasonry and has held his position as Deputy Master of one of Sweden’s oldest St. John lodges (St. Erik, originated in 1756) for the past six years.

He continues to serve as archivist of the Swedish Masonic Grand Archive, a position he has held since 2009, and as secretary of the Swedish Masonic Education Committee, since 2012. He also is a member of the oldest Provincial Grand Lodge of the Royal Order of Scotland.


If you have attended previous Rose Circle events, you have experienced the pleasures of learning firsthand from some of the most knowledgeable and sharpest minds in the Western Mystery Traditions. As you can see, this commitment to excellence will continue October 24. (Consistent with the frustration that seems to govern my life, I will not be able to join you that day. I’ll be just about a mile down the street at another event.)
     

‘Rose Circle on Facebook’

     
It made me realize it has been—amazingly—nine years since the Rose Circle Research Foundation’s first conference, but today the official Facebook page for Rose Circle went live. Facebook users click here.

I don’t write about Rose Circle much because it’s been more than four years since the last event—and I remember now that I never even got around to telling you about that—but if you don’t know, the Rose Circle Research Foundation is an independent educational non-profit group that unites many of the top thinkers in the field of Western Mystery Traditions. Rosicrucianism, Spiritual Alchemy, Freemasonry, Tarot (not the fortune-telling nonsense), and other studies are investigated by world renowned researchers and authors who speak from the podium at Rose Circle’s very well attended conferences in the New York City area. An announcement of a new event is expected next month.

That first event took place April 29, 2006 at the Bayonne Masonic Temple in New Jersey, the home of my Olde Mother Lodge. That one day brought together Michael Buckley, Chic Cicero, Sean Graystone, Trevor Stewart, Piers Vaughan, and others for an incredible and unforgettable celebration of enlightening the mind and invigorating the heart. To see these people, plus Robert Davis, Ron Cappello, Aaron Shoemaker, Thurman Pace, and more still seated in my Masonic lodge was a big thrill. (See below for the summary I shared with the Masonic Light group a few days later.)

Later gatherings, in 2008 and 2011, featured Steve Burkle, Chic and Tabatha Cicero, R.A. Gilbert, Christopher McIntosh, and many others, who I won’t embarrass by including them among the Pantheon, but all have dazzled with their esoteric understandings, historic findings, and other weighty stimuli. Just incredible events.

And here is that report from the first Rose Circle conference of nine years ago. Please read this patiently. The facts and concepts expressed here were almost totally foreign to me in 2006, and are only slightly familiar today. All errors and omissions are attributable to me, and not to the speakers. Sorry to say I have no photos of this event. I sat in the Senior Warden’s station with my old Minolta SLR and dutifully shot several rolls of film—that’s right: rolls of film!—and the prints are long gone. Anyway, happy anniversary, Rose Circle.


On Saturday, the newly blossomed Rose Circle Committee hosted its premier symposium on matters concerning and relating to the Craft. The Western Mystery Schools in Modern Masonry Conference met at the Bayonne Masonic Temple in New Jersey and was attended by approximately 100 men and women of all ages. No fewer than seven scholars presented multimedia programs on their fields of interest.

Bro. Aaron Shoemaker of Missouri, whose introductory address focused on the crucial need for mainstream Freemasonry to provide the secret teachings that many young Masons and prospective Masons are seeking. His insightful remarks definitely set the tone for the day; we in the audience had no doubt that the “thinking Mason” would be celebrated that day.

These Masons have “interest in pursuing the various rites and degrees, and not in collecting more aprons, titles and pins,” he said. He then charged us with the tasks of writing papers for our lodges and publications and to serve in leadership and committees for the very “survival of the fraternity.”

He concluded his remarks with words from Manly Hall’s The Lost Keys of Freemasonry:

“Masonry is eternal truth, personified, idealized, and yet made simple. Eternal truth alone can serve it. Virtue is its priest, patience its warden, illumination its master. The world cannot know this, however, save when Masons in their daily life prove that it is so. Its truth is divine, and is not to be desecrated or defamed by the thoughtlessness of its keepers. Its temple is a holy place, to be entered in reverence. Material thoughts and material dissensions must be left without its gate. They may not enter. Only the pure of heart, regenerated and transmuted, may pass the sanctity of its veil. The schemer has no place in its ranks, nor the materialist in its shrine; for Masons walk on hallowed ground, sanctified by the veneration of ages. Let the tongue be stilled, let the heart be stilled, let the mind be stilled. In reverence and in the silence, stillness shall speak: the voice of stillness is the voice of the Creator. Show your light and your power to men, but before God what have you to offer, save in humility? Your robes, your tinsel, and your jewels mean naught to Him, until your own body and soul, gleaming with the radiance of perfection, become the living ornaments of your Lodge.”

Next, Bro. Sean Graystone, 33° of New Mexico and a Board member of the Scottish Rite Research Society spoke on “Kabbalistic Symbolism in Freemasonry.”

He explained that the Kabbala of Western Hermetic thought is not identical to the classic Hebrew Kabbala, but is a “fabricated language of mysteries” drawing from Hebrew, Greek and Latin. He addressed gematria, a “highly sophisticated cyphering method,” that has enormous implications for esoteric Freemasonry. Taking the first word of Genesis, Graystone explained that this word in Hebrew (Bereshith) is an acronym for “In the beginning the Elohim saw that Israel would accept the law.”

Looking at the Hebrew word for “stone,” he explained that it is spelled with the Hebrew letters Ab (meaning “father”) and Ben (meaning “son”). Turning to Psalm 118, he said that the gematria of “the stone rejected by the builders” = 274, which equals that of the name Hiram Abiff.

Next, Bro. Chic Cicero, Grand Standard Bearer of the Grand Commandery of Knights Templar of Florida, delivered a dramatic talk on the “History and Modern Manifestations of Rosicrucianism.” Explaining that Rosicrucianism is a three-fold mix of alchemy, psychology and mysticism, Cicero spoke at length on the power of the number 3 as a symbol to aid seekers in their quest for spiritual awareness. “The goal of alchemy,” he said, “is to bring humanity to its pre-ordained state of perfection” through the uncovering of inner wisdom that will carry “man’s lower nature to a higher attainment.”

Rosicrucian labor was shown to consist of a “dissolve and coagulate” method in which heat is applied to cause separation and solvents are used to attain purification before recombination is achieved.

Making parallels between psychology and faith, Cicero maintained that “the psyche is as real as the body is real,” and explained that events in the New Testament (Christ’s descent into Hell, for example) illustrate how confrontation is a step that need be taken toward reaching self-awareness.

Bro. Cicero does not mince words. At his conclusion he stated without hesitation that atheists and hedonists can never attain what the “true mystic” can because of their inability to suppress the ego.

It must be noted that there actually was an eighth speaker during the memorable day. VW Bro. Piers Vaughan of St. John’s Lodge No. 1, AYM, serving as emcee, took to the podium after each presentation to draw the conclusions that helped the rapt audience segue into each upcoming lecture. I think his job was the most difficult because the seven lecturers (for the most part) had their prepared texts and PowerPoint files, but Vaughan had to speak extemporaneously and with authority on each of these diverse topics, while establishing commonality among them all. To cite just one example, after Shoemaker’s introductory lecture on the allure of esoteric symbolism and before Graystone’s talk on Kabbala (and during the retooling of the audio/video equipment), Vaughan spoke convincingly of the urgent need for grand lodges to stop buying billboard space to tell the world that Masonry has no secrets. It’s not the meals and the charity that draw people to Masonry and the societies that surround it, he explained, but it is the religious (but not dogmatic) themes and the esoteric meaning of their rituals that are rooted in ancient Israel.

Bro. Michael Buckley addressed the conference on the subject of “Martinism and the Way of the Heart,” a topic perfect for him, as he is Grand Master of both the Martinist Order of Unknown Philosophers and the Hermetic Order of Martinists.

I won’t get too detailed here, as Buckley spoke of Martinism’s history, degree structure and other facts that are likely on the web. If I understood him though, the philosophy of Martinism can be likened to the ideals of Voltaire and the politics of Rousseau.

And I will say that I’m sorry to have missed ML’s very own Bro. Ron Blaisdell, Past Provincial Grand Recorder/Chancellor, who said he was coming from Florida. Ron, I don’t know if you made it to Bayonne, but if so, I am sorry I didn’t find you! Unfortunately I had to leave before the start of the panel discussion to help a brother catch a train at the Hoboken terminal and I couldn’t make it back to Bayonne because of heavy traffic. I did get to shake hands again with Ill. Robert Davis of Oklahoma, who I hear will return to New Jersey June 3 to speak at our Scottish Rite Council of Deliberation. Bob, I’ll have some cigars for you.

Bro. Gregory White, of Circle of Friends Chapter in California (I don’t know what this is a chapter of), gave us all “An Introduction to Tarot, Book ‘T’ of the Rosicrucian Manifesto.”

“The tarot deck,” said Bro. White, “is a map that moves us through the world” and “keeps the mind from wandering and helps redirect our thinking away from anger.” It is said that when the perfectly preserved corpse of Christian Rosenkreutz was discovered, in his hands was Book T, which, it was explained here, is the tarot deck. White mentioned that there are several very common tarot decks, but that the one appearing in his PowerPoint slides was “very Masonic.” And as regards spirituality, he borrowed from author David Hawkins’ “Spheres of Influences,” which charts the progression from Mundane to Astral to Spirit, a journey that I think is undertaken by prayer, followed by theurgy (ritualized prayer), followed by meditation, followed by use of the tarot cards.

And how are the cards employed? White showed one set of placement. Imagine four blackjack players and a dealer. The four are abreast of each other and the dealer is alone. The four settings are Past, Action, Result and Future, and the dealer is Present. White said (I think) the order of the five actually doesn’t matter because the cards will find their rightful places. (I’m sure someone here can make sense of this because I probably misunderstood.) He also showed the 22 trump cards and explained some of their archetypal natures. The Fool always means potential, he said, so there may be hope for me yet.

The sole speaker to receive a standing ovation was New Jersey’s own Bro. Taras Chubenko, who I’m privileged to know through my York Rite activities. He is protopresbyter of New Jersey’s largest Orthodox congregation and I know him as a very inspirational and thoughtful man who has made an enormous difference in the lives of two people I care about. His topic was “The Rectified Current of Christian Masonry and Mysticism in the Chivalric Orders,” which took him entirely by surprise. He digressed and spoke without notes on how our everyday concerns and activities can conspire to occlude Light from reaching us and reflecting off us. “We circumvent faith and want to see everything on paper,” he observed, “but there is nothing holy about the Bible (as an object). It is the CONTENT that can be holy to those who ‘see’ holiness.... There is an aura around each of us. Your ‘third eye’ can see it.”

On chivalry, he suggested its purest definition calls men to be true in the “embracing of the other sex” and be “accepting of women.” Yet another instance of this conference’s seeming mirroring of ML.

In conclusion, and perhaps provoking the aforementioned ‘standing O,’ Chubenko left the audience with this thought: “Heaven isn’t ‘up there’ and Hell isn’t ‘down there,’ but Heaven is right in front of you.”

Continuing on the theme of tolerance, VW Vaughan reminded us of how KST had many different groups of workers all doing their own tasks but working as one, united toward achieving a common goal. He repeated a call for which he is known: that Freemasonry’s fundraising experts, ritualists, dinner planners and scholars need to support each other’s endeavors because each represents an important facet of the Craft.

And last, but not least, and returning to New Jersey for the first time since his appearance as Prestonian Lecturer in 2004, Bro. Trevor Stewart of Quatuor Coronati opened all our eyes to Joséphin Péladan and his Salons de la Rose-Croix. Unfortunately time did not allow for more enjoyment of the dozens of PowerPoint slides showing off the truly stunning “symbolic art” paintings produced in Paris from 1892 to 1897 for these exhibitions. There’s truly nothing I can say to describe any of them. They must be viewed intently and joyfully, and perhaps accompanied by Holst’s work “The Planets.”

There were six Salons de la Rose Croix in this period, each dedicated to a Babylonian deity. The following is the list matching deity with planet and with (mythological) attribute.

The stated purpose of the Salon de la Rose Croix was “to ruin realism, reform Latin taste and create a school of idealist art.” This invitational Order was flawed, said Stewart, in that its purpose was defined not in terms of what the salon was, but in terms of what it was not, quite possibly resulting in the absence of France’s leading artists of the day. For example a lengthy list of prohibitive rules excluded the following subjects: history painting; patriotic and military painting; representations of contemporary life; portraits; rustic scenes; landscapes; seascapes and sailors; all humorous things; “merely picturesque Orientalism;” all domestic animals and those relating to sport; flowers, fruit, still lifes “and other exercises that painters ordinarily have the effrontery to exhibition.”

The list of acceptable themes was much shorter, but covered many media. Of architecture: “since this art was killed in 1789, only restorations or projects for fairly tale palaces are acceptable.”(!)

The results briefly glimpsed via PowerPoint were shocking in their daring originality. Even the posters made to advertise the events were stunning, including one depicting Perseus clutching Zola’s decapitated head.

“When the simple is ambiguous, what does it mean?” asked Stewart on behalf of M. Péladan. “Symbolic art is subjective. It appeals to the irrational and the variable.”

Despite having missed the panel discussion on “Esoteric Orders Today,” to which the audience was encouraged to submit written questions, this conference meant so much to me I can’t even articulate it. [Sorry, Magpie readers, but I have to omit several sentences here.] And then along came Piers Vaughan and the Rose Circle Committee and their outstanding symposium, bringing together experts and seekers from across two continents... and all under my own roof, to boot. It was hugely inspirational to look around my lodge room and see Trevor Stewart and see Robert Davis and Taras Chubenko and all the diverse, eclectic personalities in the audience... sitting at the edge of their seats.

It’s my understanding that other Rose Circle conferences are to come. I recommend keeping an eye on this and buying your tickets early.
     

‘A new Fama translation 400 years on’

     

Enigmatic literature of the esoteric world is at its most powerful when it intrigues and inspires occultist practitioner, academic scholar, and candid seeker alike, and the mysterious Fama Fraternitatis has stood the test of time for these reasons, despite there never being a high quality adaptation into English of the original German text. Leave it to Dr. Christopher McIntosh and  wife Donate Pahnke McIntosh to bring the classic text into the 21st century with this brand new English translation in the quadricentenary year of the Fama’s first publication. Donate McIntosh also has produced a translation into modern German.

The Fama—its full title reads: Fama Fraternitatis: Manifesto of the Most Praiseworthy Order of the Rosy Cross, addressed to all the rulers, estates and learned of Europe—is perhaps to Rosicrucianism what the Declaration of Independence is to the United States. Its message is an announcement to the world of the existence of the mysterious order, and it arrived at a time when Protestantism was setting free Christianity from the confines of Rome. Its authorship is legendary, meaning no one is sure of the exact who, what, and why. It’s even said that the author meant it as a prank, or a gambit of disinformation to protect something and someone else.

Regardless, values like truth have layered significance in the esoteric world. Factual accuracy sometimes ranks behind intuitive import when romantic types are attempting to define their spiritual lives. Sometimes believing is seeing.

And sometimes that’s okay.

I do not have a copy of this new paperback yet, so for description I will just share what Amazon offers:

Christopher McIntosh
at the 2011 Rose Circle
conference in NYC.

The seminal document known as the Fama Fraternitatis (the Proclamation of the Fraternity) burst like a firework over Europe in the early 17th century, igniting the imagination of many with its story of the German seeker Christian Rosenkreuz, his journey through the Middle East in search of wisdom, and his creation of the esoteric Rosicrucian Fraternity.

The first of three so-called Rosicrucian Manifestos, it has hitherto received no adequate English translation. Now, to mark the 400th anniversary of the original German publication in 1614, Christopher McIntosh and Donate Pahnke McIntosh have produced an English rendering, based on careful study of printed and manuscript versions. This edition is an essential resource for all who are drawn to Rosicrucianism, whether as a field of study or a spiritual path.

Paperback: 62 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (June 25, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1499555482
ISBN-13: 978-1499555486


About the Author: Dr. Christopher McIntosh is a writer and historian specializing in the esoteric traditions of the West. Earlier in his life he worked in publishing in London and subsequently for the United Nations in New York and UNESCO in Hamburg and has travelled throughout the world. He was for several years on the faculty of the Centre for the Study of Esotericism at Exeter University. He lives in Bremen, Germany. Dr. Donate Pahnke McIntosh is a scholar of religion and was for many years standing a lecturer at the University of Bremen, specializing in Gender Studies, Esotericism, and Ritual. She runs the Selene Institute for Ritual in Bremen. Her work as a translater includes books, articles, lectures, poetry and regular translating for the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, Hamburg.
     

‘A Saturday Satie memory’

     
For some reason—I don’t know why, and I’m not necessarily proud of it—many of my earliest memories are of things seen on television. Bill Jorgensen with that day’s Vietnam body count on the Ten O’Clock News. Nixon’s resignation speech. Munich. A snippet of some cartoon showing anthropomorphized vegetables (e.g. an ill-tempered tomato) splashing down inside a stomach, or maybe a garbage can, and bickering among themselves about it.

One day at age three or four—definitely before kindergarten—I squeezed in a full morning of Sesame Street and other such programming before it was time for a nap. I abandoned the television in the master bedroom, but left it turned on, and walked a straight line of no more than twenty feet to my bed. Sacking out for a while and still able to hear the TV, I held still as haunting music reached my ears. A melody so laden with pathos that it made me afraid and sad. My eyes began tearing. I listened for maybe a minute more, feeling very uneasy, before venturing back to my parents’ room to see whatever trouble the program was. It showed wild animals, in slow motion, running through the grass and trees of some jungle-like setting. Which animals I do not remember; the music stayed with me for life.

Erik Satie

It was Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, as I would learn some 35 years later, in an arrangement—if I really can recall correctly—for guitar.

Erik-Alfred-Leslie Satie, says Encyclopædia Britannica, was a French composer “whose spare, unconventional, often witty style exerted a major influence on 20th-century music, particularly in France.” If you’re a fan of John Cage, you are acquainted with the sparse composition style and unconventional harmonies that are Satie’s legacy.

My proper introduction to M. Satie came courtesy of the Rose Circle Research Foundation, specifically Trevor Stewart’s lecture at our first conference, held in April 2006. Trevor spoke at length on the Salon de la Rose + Croix movement, led by Joseph Péladan in fin de siècle Paris. In short, it was an artistic movement wed to Péladan’s self-styled Rosicrucianism, a highly idiomatic esoteric Christianity indeed. (Now that is a subject any Rosicrucian ought to explore for personal edification.) The goal of the annual art salons was to restore the expression of spirituality to the Paris art scene, which at the time was devoted almost entirely to Realism. The art itself expressed themes from mythologies, mysticism, dreams, and other such intuitive inspirations. We can tell these paintings were generations ahead of their time because today they are merely awesome. A hundred and twenty years ago they were explosive.

Armand Point's poster promoting the 1895 Salon de la Rose Croix depicts Greek mythical hero Perseus, slayer of Medusa the Gorgon, holding up decapitated Emile Zola. 

In the liner notes of the CD Musique de la Rose-Croix (LTMCD 2469), James Nice summarizes Satie’s involvement with this arts movement:

A Templar Knight Rose Croix meets
Leonardo da Vinci in this Salon poster.

For a short period Erik Satie was appointed official composer for the esoteric Ordre de la Rose-Croix Catholique du Temple et du Graal, founded in Paris by the flamboyant mystic ‘Sar’ Joséphin Péladan. The first Salon de la Rose-Croix was held in March 1892, at which Satie’s solemn Trois Sonneries de la Rose + Croix were performed for the first time. Satie also composed music for Péladan’s play Le Fils des Étoiles (Son of the Stars), as well as two preludes for a chivalric play, Le Nazaréen. Satie subsequently broke from the Order in August 1892.

It would be too wonderful a coincidence for the sublime melody that upset me in a moment of early childhood to be among the composer’s Rosicrucian works I enjoy in middle age, and that is not the case, but I am delighted—très content—to connect the pieces and enjoy them. Erik Satie was born on this date in 1866, and when today settles down enough so I may sneak off with some tobacco and a glass of whiskey, I surely will toast his memory.