Pandora Sextae Aetatis By Danile Mogling 1617

Pandora Sextae Aetatis By Danile Mogling 1617

I hope my well-intentioned writings will not be in vain and that they will inspire some comforting hope and confidence in the lovers of the Microcosm as well as providing some welcome diversion to the interested members of your most laudable Brotherhood. 

What I have written is not however intended to prescribe something to your already sufficiently divinely-illuminated Brotherhood or to set my cap against the very wise judgement of your members, but solely to remove from the Midas-like minds (about which we hear so much) their false opinion that Man's greatest happiness is to be found in piles of gold or in elevating the transmutation of metals above all the glories of Heaven. 

Such an opinion was, after all, amply refuted long ago by Julian de Campis (i.e. Julianus Sperber). I have been even more encouraged to undertake this present task by the various exhortations and requests of my many good friends and fellow-students of Pansophy, who have asked me to adumbrate for them a brief idea and account of the general wisdom. 

This I am happy to do, taking the widespread support I have received as providing the necessary permission. I therefore most humbly submit the fruits of my studies to the most gracious favour of your Brotherhood so renowned for its Love of God,

Written in Central Germany, on the 1 st day of January 1617,

T.S.C. (Theophulus Schweighart of Konstanz)

PART I: THE PANDORA OF THE ROSICRUCIAN ART

Preface

The extent to which those who write for publication, however good their writings might be, are subject to many different kinds of criticism is well known to all very learned men and, especially, to the members of the divinely-illuminated Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross.

Both the Fama and the Confessio of this Brotherhood, as well as the well-intentioned Responses of various other writers, have attracted so much hostility up to the present time from various worldly critics that if the Brotherhood had not been established instead of a Pillar of Fire by the Grace of God then it might well have been prevented, by the careless intentions of evil tongues, from ever carrying out its task, now happily begun.

Just take a look around you. See what incredible arguments humanity is advancing. But, as Julian de Campis says, we must let the birds sing whatever may come into their little heads. Had they learnt their lessons better then they would have had better judgement.

Be that as it may, there is one thing that does cause me pain: in recent times I have had to listen to lots of little narcissists saying, among other calumnies, that the Rosicrucian Philosophy is nothing more than fusion of all the arts designed to create the most extraordinary confusion, and that it would be better if their writings were not published at all, as they interfere with all the clever rhetorical devices and displace the (if this is to be believed) true and genuine Aristotelian philosophy, to then instead adhere to foolish Kabbalistic fantasies, leading – under the spell, as it were, of such things – to the denigration of Plato, Aristotle, Galen and other ancient authors of renown.

I will be opening this Pandora's Box to critics of this kind in Chapter III of this book, and will do so with such alacrity that even if those critics do catch a whiff of their own opinions it would only be with great difficulty that they would achieve an understanding of the true heart of the matter unless, that is, they have paid close attention to the ancient Greek injunction, "Know thyself". For it would be like giving a cow nutmegs to eat, or giving an ass a lute to play. 

But you do not need to investigate or disclose all that much to get at the truth of the matter, for the truth stands right in front of you and is available to everyone. 

If you have eyes to see, then see. If you have a mind to study with, then learn; but you must go on learning until the day you die, and even then you will not have learnt everything.

Please understand what I am saying to you: it is a book – a book I say! – and a large one. And if you understand what is written in that book then you are a Rosicrucian. But do not imagine that such a book can be bought in Frankfurt, Leipzig, Amsterdam or Rome, or even in Utopia. No! It is too expensive for the booksellers, and there is none who is permitted to publish it. 

But the Brothers know where to find it and they read it every day. You however stand alongside it and gaze at it just as a cow might look at a new stable-door. It's all double-Dutch to you. But why? Because you have not properly learned the alphabet, the key to which is under the authority of Jehovah.

But I will not go into too much detail about this subject here. 

For here they come, your sworn peripatetic Scholastics and your Galenic physicians, your gold-hungry alchemists and your chemical gold-smelters, whose "treasure" consists of smoke and vapour! Come then, for Pandora's Box is finally open. But please do make sure that everyone masters the greatest part of this wonderful Art.