ROBERT FLUDD - ROSICRUCIAN ALCHEMIST

Serge Hutin


Article published in issue 46 of the journal Initiation and Science , 1958


Robert Fludd (1574-1637) is a very curious character: doctor, alchemist, astrologer, Christian theosophist, he looks a lot - by the extreme "encyclopaedism" of his esoteric knowledge - to his great inspiration, Paracelsus. He is best known (in specialized circles at least) for having been the instructor in Great Britain of the secret society of the Rose-Croix, whose influence on the progressive formation of Scottish Masonry is well established; and his theosophical system is rightly said to be founded, above all, on the initiatory teaching of the mysterious Fraternitas Rosae Crucis .

In Fludd, Alchemy is the very foundation of Christian theosophy: we discover there the least veiled expression of Rosicrucian Hermeticism, which inextricably mixes gnosis, mysticism and material practice.

We find, at random in the many treatises of the English Rosicrucian, many allusions to laboratory operations. Here, for example, is a curious passage from the Anatomiæ amphitheatrum (1): “The true alchemist imitates nature. When starting his work, he first reduces the material into pieces, he breaks it and pulverizes it - this is the function of the teeth. The matter thus divided, he introduces it through a pipe into the retort; this tube represents the esophagus. Then he wets the material before subjecting it to the action of heat - just as saliva and gastric juice moisten the food ingested in the stomach.Finally, he closes the apparatus exactly and surrounds it with moist, even and moderate heat, placing it in a bain-marie and in horse manure - this is how the stomach is naturally surrounded by the liver, the spleen, the intestines, which keep it at an even temperature. The operation of the alchemist is likened to digestion: the elaborated parts are set apart and serve to nourish the great work, while the excremental matters are rejected as useless. » (2)

Nature being the greatest of the "chemists", the artist must perpetually be guided by her: he will thus know the secret laws which govern the mystery of life and the formation of all creatures of the three kingdoms.

And yet, man must never lose sight of the fact that the soul is, in the literal sense of the word, imprisoned in the body:

“The soul which animates the body tends to rise, like the flame, towards the higher regions of the air. This is his instinct and his happiness. Now, how is it that we experience such great fatigue when we climb a mountain? Do we not follow the road that pleases the soul? - It is that the material body, whose essence of tending, quite contrary to the soul, towards the center of the earth, far outweighs, by its mass, the spark that animates us. - The soul must unite all its forces to raise with it and make obey its impulse the heavy mass of the body which enchains it. » (3)

It is therefore the spiritual aspect of Alchemy which will be, in the Rosicrucian perspective of Fludd, primordial. In the Summum Bonum , the English hermetist reminds us, moreover, that the very symbol of the Rose-Cross represents nothing other than the wood of Calvary splashed with the blood of Christ, internal and mystical - from the initiatory death of the "old man" - in order to achieve saving illumination. Addressing the Brothers of the Rose-Croix, its mysterious initiators, Fludd exclaims:

“From my careful research I have concluded, O most enlightened brethren, that you are truly enlightened by the Spirit, by divine prompting and warnings to which will be announced and unveiled those things which the sacred texts mystically foretold must take place immediately before the end of the world. You, above the men of this age, you have received from the Creator of the world superior bliss, spiritual virtue and divine grace. You see in its light, you are comforted by the Spirit of Wisdom, you lead a happy life, and it appears that you have received all the gifts of the Holy Spirit. » (4)

The Great Rosicrucian Work seems at first to be exclusively spiritual: “And, the Summum Bonum warns us, there is no other name on earth, nor in heaven, by which we can be saved, except the name of Jesus, under which all things are united, for Christ Jesus is all in all. » (5)

Another characteristic passage, still in the same work: “The Rose of the Rosicrucians is the blood of Christ from which all our sins have been washed away. It is the rose of Sharon from the Song of Songs; it is she who adorns the secret garden, it is at its base that the Well of Living Waters is dug; it is the charity of Christ by which, according to the word of the apostle, we come to know, with all the saints, the width, the length, the elevation and the depth; it is the blood to the shedding of which we must resist sin. » (6)

This is not, however, a simple allusion to some sort of spiritual exercise; or, rather, the latter are integrated into a much broader perspective: by divine Wisdom, man can know “all things”, as it is said in the Scriptures; but, by knowing God, the adept can attain - and in the most tangible way possible - eternal life. The Rosicrucian, in the strict sense of the term - as opposed to the simple "Rosicrucians" - members of the secret society of the same name - is a man who has regained the immortality that Adam possessed before the Fall:

“Happy is he who can unite with the Spirit, for both in his body, living or dead, and in his soul, he will have bliss and bliss, sincere bliss, by which alone we can be exalted to eternal life, no other than Enoch and Elijah never dying or Moses after his death. It is therefore not impossible that this Spirit unites with the bodies of some enlightened ones, attracts them to itself by the resurrection and retains them with their souls close to it for eternity (…). The enlightened are therefore destined to recover this sovereign good, at no second (…). Such is the principle of regeneration, of the resurrection of soul and body, of the sublimation of terrestrial bodies into celestial nature, of the separation of the gross and the subtle, of the impure and the pure,of the transmutation of the being of visible nature into invisible nature; such is the principle of true dyeing which alone dyes metals and bodies. » (7)

The philosopher's stone is the "manna", the divine nourishment of which Christ speaks; this is the “Bread of Life”. To Father Mersenne, who asks him: “Where does the Fraternity of the Rose-Croix meet? Fludd replies, "In the palace of God, where Christ is the cornerstone" (8). And this "cornerstone" is not only spiritual, but tangible, palpable as one might say: Christ is the Soul of the World, the Principle of Life, by which both the world as a whole and all the beings that compose it subsist. The alchemical Fire is the luminous Principle, the Word, which must be freed from its dark gangue.The adept transforms his body into an angelic body, becomes an Immortal: the philosopher's stone destroys the gross mass, and converts the body into an infinitely mobile luminous essence, sheltered from external influences, but which still continues to retain the human appearance . (9)

"Can anyone, in the space of time between the resurrection of Christ and his second coming, arise by virtue of the life-giving Spirit from death into eternal life? To this question (10), Robert Fludd answers in the affirmative. And he clarifies the nature of the mystery of alchemical regeneration :

“It is said that the nature of men is consanguineous of the nature of the gods and that it is related to it by divinity. And this is what should be understood from the Rosicrucian hieroglyphs and not see in them the work of a common prompter. To him who will possess the Word uttered from the nude, and will open himself to the Spirit gleaming with divine splendor, will belong the destiny of Moses or Elijah (…). Here is the daring lion that devours the sun, and thus the essential mixture of higher things with lower ones, announcing immortality, incorruptibility, the strength of strength. » (11)

The Rosicrucian Alchemy has as its essential goal to allow a few privileged men - the "true Rose-Croix" - to regain immortality; it makes it possible to compensate for the shortcomings of the post-Adamic human condition:

“We perish through injustice, which is the modality of the devil, who is the Prince of this world, from which he drove out Justice; and such is the reason which renders us incapable of immortality. Being just, we would be immortal like Justice itself, whose nature is to be in perpetuity and without which we can neither regenerate nor revive. However, a number of men are not excluded from the blessing; the mystery of the resurrection dwells in their souls, and these are the ones who have the privilege of being counted among the number of the sons of God, because they perceive the light which reigns in the world and which the world does not see; they see it, know it and attest to it. » (12)


NOTES

(1) Frankfurt (de Bry) 1623, folio.

(2) p. 223-224 (translated by F. Hoefer, History of Chemistry , Paris, 1869, volume 2, pp. 181-182).

(3) Utriusque Cosmi Historia , volume 2, first part (Oppenheim, de Bry, 1617), p. 137 (translation by Hoefer, p. 179).

(4) Tractatus theologo-philosophicus (Oppenheim, de Bry, 1617), I, XVI (translation by Edgar Jégut, quoted in Sédir, Histoire et doctrines des Rose-Croix , Bihorel, 1932, pp. 113-114).

(5) Sedir, p. 282.

(6) Sedir, p. 302.

(7) Robert Fludd, Tractatus theologo-philosophicus , III, VII (Sédir, pp. 228-229).

(8) Summum Bonum , p. 37. Cf. Sophia cum Maria Certanem , Frankfurt, 1629, p. 56. “…Petra spiritualis, quæ…erat Christus”.

(9) Summum Bonum , Books III and IV – Philosophia Maysaica, Garda (Rammazenius), 1638, section II, Book III, chap. 8.

(10) This is the title of Chapter VII of Book III of the Tractatus theologo-philosophicus .

(11) Tractatus theologo-philosophicus, III, VII (Sédir, p. 230).

(12) Ibid.