Friday, February 02, 2007
POLISH ROSICRUCIANISM
At the Alchemy Web Site Rafal T. Prinke speculates on Rosicrucianism in Poland based on the images displayed on the coronation sword of Polish kings, called "Szczerbiec" or the "Jagged Sword." He believes there may be a connection--a "Passing on the Torch" between Knights Templar and Rosicrucians, and comes to this conclusion using symbolism from the sword. He writes:
The known history of Szczerbiec starts in 1320, when it was first used for the coronation of the Plolish king Ladislaus the Short, who reunited the small appanage divisions after two hundred years. It may be significant that this was shortly after the suppression of Templars. An exciting, though far fetched, hypothesis would be that Polish kings became some sort of hiers to the Order of the Temple. In order to support this conjecture we may be reminded that from that time until the middle of the 17th century Poland (united in a commonwealth with Lithuania) was the greatest European country and one of the most powerful. At the same time she was a country of equality (there were feudal classes, of course, but there was no aristocracy) and tolerance (there have never been religious wars in Poland and it became a shelter for various heretics, Jews and Moslems), which was certainly in the spirit of the Rosicrucian manifestos and later of Freemasonry and probably also of the Kights Templar.
On the sword he finds the "God I" which he says historians have interpreted as the first letter of the Tetragrammaton. He also sees corrupted forms of the names of God used in the grimoires of kabbalistic magic, written in corrupted Hebrew.
He finds Enochian words on the sword and notes that this stems from John Dee and Edward Kelley.
He mentions that "most of the Polish kings are known to have been interested in one or another of the hermetic sciences" and gives examples.
According to Prinke Polish Rosicrucian activity was centered in Gdansk and included the Dominican monk Wincenty Kowski in the monastery at Gdansk. Dominican monasteries, he claims, were centres of alchemical practices.
He notes that "When the Order of the Gold and Rosy Cross was 'masonised' and actually became one of the numerous rites of Freemasonry, it also had lodges or 'circles' in Poland, especially in Warsaw" and that "there were Polish patrons of Eliphas Levi (Count Branicki and Count Mniszech)."
Prinke is a Polish researcher in genealogy and heraldry and has been published in numerous genealogical publications. He also writes on alchemy and hermeticism.
Part of Prinke's website includes a link to "Names of Goetia demons from Wierus and Lemegeton" on a webpage featuring the image of an egg and a sword-weilding knight. Is this egg the symbol of that line of thinking which claims there were children of Jesus and Mary Magdalene? It's certainly possible. While thinking about that, let's not forget recent revelations of communist activity in Poland. Perhaps there is a connection.
