Category: Star Family

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Rosicrucians, Moravians and The Thirty Years War

Last week I talked about how Frederick V and Elizabeth wanted to create an ideal court based in Rosicrucian teachings, according to Frances Yates (The Rosicrucian Enlightenment). They moved their court from Heidelberg to Prague.

The Protestant estates of Bohemia rebelled against Ferdinand, their Catholic king, in 1618. Frederick, as head of the Protestant Union, was asked to take the throne. He was crowned Frederick I, King of Bohemia, on November 4, 1619. Frederick had hoped for the support of Elizabeth’s father, the king of England, but James I did offer military assistance. The Protestant Union sealed the deal with the Treaty of Ulm in 1620, in which they promised neutrality in the war. The hope to overthrow Hapsburg and Catholic rule in Bohemia failed at the Battle of White Mountain on November 8, 1620. Frederick ruled as King of Bohemia for one year and four days, thus earning the nickname The Winter King. The imperial forces invaded the Palatinate and the royal family fled to the Dutch Republic.

The attempted to create the ideal court was defeated that day, but the dream lived on.

Members of the Unitas Fratrum, known as the Moravian Church in America, fought with Frederick during this war. “With the Peace of Westphalia at war’s end, Catholicism became the official religion of Bohemia and Moravia. The few surviving members of the Unitas Fratrum either left their homeland or worshiped in secret, becoming known as ‘The Hidden Seed’” (Determining the Facts).

How connected were the Unitas Fratrum to the Rosicrucian ideal Frederick and Elizabeth hoped to create? Let’s explore Moravian and Rosicrucian connections next week.

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Yates and The Rosicrucian Enlightenment 2.0

One of the most revealing connections Yates makes in her book is the Rosicrucians were deeply involved with the attempt to overthrow Catholic and Hapsburg control over Europe. So were the Moravians, the group featured in The Star Family.

But rather than define the Rosicrucians by what they opposed, perhaps it would be better to state what they wanted to create. They were attempting to create an ideal state to preserve science, philosophy, Hermeticism, and other knowledge threatened by the Catholics. The hope? “A world order reflecting harmonious cosmic laws in which the spirit of man would be freed to pursue its God-given destiny.” (Johann Valentin Andrea and the Rosicrucians)

John Hus of Prague (1369-1415) tried to reform the Catholic Church and his efforts were rewarded with his martyrdom in 1415. Hus, a professor of philosophy and rector of the University in Prague, gave rousing sermons at The Bethlehem Chapel, where the Czech reformation centered its activities.

After Hus was burnt at the stake for heresy, the Hussite rebellion followed, which led to the founding of the Unitas Fratrum (Unity of the Brethren, known in the U.S. as the Moravian Church) in 1457. But the new movement met persecution in the 1500’s, and many fled to exile in Poland. “By 1557 there were three provinces of the church: Bohemia, Moravia and Poland. The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) brought further persecution to the Brethren’s Church, and the Protestants of Bohemia were severely defeated at the battle of White Mountain in 1620.” (A Brief History of the Moravian Church)

As it turns out, the Thirty Years War was also connected to the Rosicrucians. Here’s how.

Queen Elizabeth had allied herself with the Netherlands and with German and French Protestants in opposition to Hapsburg aggression in Europe, backed by the Catholic Church. After Elizabeth’s death, Prince James VI of Scotland became King James I of England. His daughter, Princess Elizabeth, married Frederick V, Elector Palatine of the Rhine.

frederick

This union was supposed to unite Protestant England with Protestant Germany in anticipation of the end of the truce in 1621 between Spain and the Netherlands. The Catholics were preparing for a new assault against what they termed heresy, and they supported the Hapsburgs with this new war in mind. The new couple progressed from London through the Netherlands to Heidelberg, where they established their court.

During this same time, the Rosicrucian manifestos were published in Germany by Johann Valentin Andrea. The first public document was the Fama Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis, which appeared in 1614, followed in 1615 by the Confessio Fraternitatis. In 1616 the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz was published. These documents brought the Rosicrucian teachings to the public. These teachings were designed to awaken and expand human consciousness, to connect the individual mind with the universal, and reconcile human awareness with the basic principles of the laws of nature. Yes, I named Valentin Knight after Andrea and a modern mystic.

Frederick and Elizabeth wanted to create “a culture, a ‘Rosicrucian’ state with its court centered on Heidelberg” (Yates). So how did they get to Prague and how did the Thirty Years War start? Check out next week’s blog for more.

 

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Frances Yates and The Rosicrucian Enlightenment

Frances Yates’ book on the importance of the Rosicrucians in the European Enlightenment became a critical part of my research for The Star Family. She helped deepen my conviction that several important Moravian church leaders were also part of the Western Mystery tradition. The book also traced important links between the Thirty Years’ War and this group of mystics.

The Star Family S

Dame Frances Yates taught history at University College London in the Warburg Institute. Her work focused on esoteric history. Born in 1899 in Southsea, Yates was the eldest of four children.

She was educated at home, although an older sister attended Girton College at Cambridge, the women’s college Virginia Woolf made famous in her essay A Room of One’s Own. (It might have been famous already.) Yates got her degree in French through correspondence courses at University College, London, then in 1926, an MA in French Theatre.

Frances yatesI do not know where she received her esoteric training, but through reading her work, it is obvious she had an excellent grounding in the western metaphysical tradition. I’ll bet somebody out there knows. (Hint, hint.)

Many now claim that Yates founded a paradigm. She argued that Renaissance hermeticism, or Rosicrucian teachings, formed an important part of European culture. They led to the development of science, which Wouter Hanegraaff claims then dismissed its parent. (Yes, even theories have Oedipal complexes.) While scholars argue that there is no unified esoteric tradition (without really studying it, I might add), even the most mainstream historian will admit that Yates did bring the Rosicrucians into the scholarly discussion of the period, clearly showing how important their teachings were.

Her major works include Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (1964), The Art of Memory (1966), and The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (1972).

In the next blog, I’ll explore some of the elements in this last book that relate to the Moravian church and The Star Family.

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Moravian Writers’ Conference

I will be a panelist at the Moravian Writers’ Conference in Bethlehem, PA in June. My panel is called “Writing Moravians:  Stories from the Archives.” I’ll be talking about the research behind my novel The Star Family with writers from Lehigh University and Craig Atwood, from Moravian College. Craig researched the period in Moravian history that inspired me to write The Star Family, and I’m looking forward to talking with him more.

Moravian College

Come join us in Bethlehem the first weekend of June.