Still Running Off at the Keyboard

THE ORDER OF THE ASIATIC BRETHREN

Once one begins a careful look at Sabbatai Zevi and Jacob Frank, many of the details about the contemporary occult scene begin to fall into place. One of those details is the Order of the Asiatic Brethren.

Jewish historian Jacob Katz is an important source. His book, JEWS AND FREEMASONS IN EUROPE, is online. Katz recounts the founding of this Masonic lodge that was the first to admit Jews. The history of the order can be traced back to Sabbatai Zevi. Katz writes:

The earliest attempt to found a Masonic order with the avowed purpose of accepting both Jews and Christians in its ranks was the formation of the Order of the Asiatic Brethren or, to give it its full name, Die Brьder St. Johannes des Evangelisten aus Asien in Europa. We are fully familiar with the history of this society which was more important than all the others because of the scope of its activities and its influence. Founded in Vienna in 1780-81, its central figure and promoter was Hans Heinrich von Ecker und Eckhoffen, of Bavarian extraction. He and his younger brother Hans Carl...had behind them a rich past in the history of the Masonic societies in Germany...Heinrich...had been active among the Rosicrucians in Bavaria and Austria, whose dabbling in alchemy served as confidence schemes to swindle money out of the naive and reckless. As a result of some quarrel, he severed his connections with them and, in 1781, published a book denouncing them. At that very time he was busy forming a new order, later to become renowned as the Order of the Asiatic Brethren but known in its first manifestation as Die Ritter vom wahren Licht.

Katz tells us that "the connection of the Asiatic brethren with the Sabbatian movement is conclusively proved."

Another prominent figure in the founding of this Order was Baron Thomas von Schoenfeld, an "apostate Jew".

Mosheh Dobruschka, alias Thomas von Schoenfeld, actually had been an active adherent of the Sabbatian movement. As we shall see later, he incorporated liberal portions of Sabbatian doctrines in the teachings of the Order...he wanted to tie the Order to a tradition derived, in some manner, from the Orient, as the name, "The Asiatic Brethren in Europe," clearly shows. The Order had to possess some novel trait to set it off from the other lodges and orders, and its novelty was the tracing of its descent to some Oriental source...Schoenfeld's provision of Cabalistic source material gave this contention some semblance of authenticity.

"Melchizedek lodges" were formed with the intention of distinguishing them from the Masonic lodges named after John the Baptist. A claim was made that these lodges used a well-known "Melchizedek rite", but this was a fabrication. According to Katz, "Jewish admission was made conditional...in practice if not in theory, on the candidate's relinquishing the Judaism prevailed at that time."

He writes further:

The ideology of the Asiatic Brethren has been subjected to a critical analysis by Professor Gershom Scholem. His study has revealed that on its theoretical level this ideology was a conglomeration of principles drawn from Christian and Jewish sources. Cabalistic and Sabbatian ideas were jumbled together with Christian theosophic doctrines. The same applied to symbols and festive and memorial days, which were fundamental to the activities of the various degrees of the Order. Along with Christian holidays, such as Christmas and John the Apostle's Day, Jewish festivals, such as the anniversaries of the birth and death of Moses, of the Exodus, and of the Giving of the Law, were celebrated. The Christian Asiatic, however, did not have to suffer pangs of conscience. He could easily have regarded himself as completely faithful to the tenets of his religion-and even look upon himself as reverting to the same pristine form of Christianity which was preserved within Judaism. The Jew, on the other hand, could hardly remain oblivious to the fact that he was trespassing beyond the boundaries of his own traditions. The adoption of Christian symbols could on no account be reconciled with the doctrines of Judaism. And, if these acts were not a sufficiently serious breach of his faith, he was also required, as a member of the Order, to eat pork with milk as part of some solemn celebration. Even the most ignorant of Jews was fully aware that he was thereby violating a law of his own religion. Such antinomian tendencies could only be found in Sabbatian conceptions, and this influence, as we have seen before, was clearly prevalent. The apostate and Sabbatian Moses Dobrushka-Schoenfeld served as the transmission line, carrying this influence to the Order of the Asiatics. Others too may have possessed a similar Sabbatian background, and their sectarian past paved the way for their participation in a Judeo-Christian society which had adopted their previous doctrines and observances.

The Asiatic Brethren practiced syncretism as do today's Masonic lodges:

The other members of the Order were not known as past Sabbatians, but rather as adherents of the disintegrating tendencies of the Haskalah which, explicitly or tacitly, provided the justification for abandoning Jewish traditions. The histories of the Itzig and Arnstein families in Berlin and Vienna respectively furnish a clear example of this process of alienation, which impelled many to forsake Judaism altogether and left others behind, with their bearings lost and the security of their environment destroyed. The lost souls of the latter group were easy targets for recruitment in orders of the Asiatic Brethren variety, since such an association offered them a new social haven, beyond the borders of Judaism, but where they were not called upon to sever their former connections and to adopt Christianity. The religious syncretism of the Order, which might be interpreted as according a status to Judaism within Christianity, was less of a restraint and more of a stimulus and an attraction.

Katz equates the Asiatics with the Rosicrucians:

Admittedly, the members of the Order of the Asiatics had held themselves out as opposed to the Rosicrucians, but the two were, in truth, of the same type.

The Kabbalah used in the lodge was thought to be independent of any religion so that the member who used it would "pass beyond the confines of his specific religious tradition and reach 'the one and only, true, pure, and over-all religion." The basis for this was a belief that "there was a single, mystic wisdom common to all religions."

The lodge failed, but the concept is still with us today.

Katz indicates that two lodge members made the acquaintance of the occultist St. Martin while in Strasbourg.