Towards a New Jerusalem: A Gathering of Jacobites, Scottish Rite-Rosicrucian Freemasons, Moravians, Sabbatian Jews and the Father of Theosophy
In 1790 the world renown English poet and artist William Blake, who was a member of the Swedenborg Society and whose parents were members of the Moravian Church, produced a provocative but puzzling work entitled The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Written as a radical rebuttal to the conservative faction of Swedenborgians in London (who were rejecting the increasing sexual promiscuity of the group), Blake’s response echoed that of the antinomianists and the Sabbatian followers of Jacob Frank:
As a new heaven is begun, and it is now thirty-three years since its advent [referring to Swedenborg’s “Heaven and Hell” published in 1758], the Eternal Hell revives. And lo! Swedenborg is the Angel sitting at the tomb; his writings are the linen clothes folded up. Now is the dominion of Edom, & the return of Adam into Paradise; see Isaiah xxxiv & xxxv Chap.
Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human Existence.
From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy.[1]
Gershom Scholem,[2] a German philosopher, historian and founder of the modern academic study of the Kabbalah, explains this concept of “Edom” as such:
...Edom symbolizes the unbridled flow of life which liberates man because its force and power are not subject to any law... It was necessary to abolish and destroy the laws, teachings, and practices which constrict the power of life, but this must be done in secret; ...it was essential outwardly to assume the garb of the corporeal Edom, i.e., Christianity...[but] Jesus of Nazareth was no more than the husk preceding and concealing the fruit, who was [Jacob] Frank himself [the claimed reincarnation of Sabbatai Zevi]. [3]
Marsha Keith Schuchard writes in “Why Mrs. Blake Cried: Swedenborg, Blake and the Sexual Basis or Spiritual Vision”:
Following the Sabbatians' advocacy of "holy sinning," some members of the network pretended conversion to Christianity and assimilated Kabbalistic notions of the Shekhinah into Christian notions of the Virgin Mary. Among the more radical Sabbatians, such as the followers of Jacob Frank in Poland, there developed a "veritable mythology of nihilism," in which the new spiritual or messianic law "entailed a complete reversal of values, symbolized by the change of the thirty-six prohibitions of the Torah...into positive commands."[4]
This included all the prohibited sexual unions and incest. Believing that the descent into evil is a condition of ascent towards good, the radicals "permitted the illicit things." When they outwardly converted to Christianity (Edom), the Sabbatians committed the holy sin that would liberate them from the repressions of Mosaic and Talmudic law.[5]
It is no coincidence that this concept of “Holy Sin” and Blake’s hearkening of a new heaven where the Eternal Hell revives with Evil as its source of Energy - with its breaking of laws that we are told oppress us in order to let in everything including the darkest acts as a form of self-liberation would find its echo in the 20th century’s Age of Aquarius; Aleister Crowley’s Law of Thelema with its maxim “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law”, or that of Freud’s first disciple Otto Gross within Bakunin’s Ascona experiment where the birth of the counter-culture movement arose and where Freud’s second disciple, Carl Jung was recruited into, shaping in turn his theory on self-liberation.
As this series will showcase in several instalments; from William Blake to W.B. Yeats and the Golden Dawn, from the Jacobites to the Jacobins and the French Revolution, from the Stuart Restoration to the Modern Scottish Rite and Rosicrucian Freemasonry of Heredom, from the Moravian “Christians” and Sabbatian “Jews” to the father of Theosophy Swedenborg and the rise of the socialistic communes and sex cults, from Swedenborg to the “Asiatic Brethren” - the Ascended Masters of Blavatsky et al., from the Father of American Psychology Williams James and the British Society for Psychical Research to the Smithsonian Institute and the Ghost Dance Religion, all of these threads are in fact tied to one another in their cause and vision – a Millenarian vision to restore Solomon’s Temple. The regeneration of the Temple of Jerusalem through a rebuilding of the world psyche.
It is in fact the Father of Theosophy himself, Emanuel Swedenborg, who will play a central role in these developments and will be discussed in detail throughout this series. As Marsha Keith Schuchard reveals in her book “Emanuel Swedenborg, Secret Agent on Earth and in Heaven: Jacobites, Jews, and Freemasons in Early Modern Sweden”, Swedenborg would be greatly influenced by the Moravians and the Sabbatians which would influence his philosophies on uniting his interpreted teachings, including on the Kabbalah, into the initiation rites within the Swedish Rite and the Scottish Rite to which the former was a branch. The monarchies of the “Sun King” King Louis XIV and his son King Louis XV would see the reemergence of the Scottish Rite in service to the Stuart Restoration cause. A clandestine network would spread all throughout Europe tied to these lodges, and eventually would incorporate elements of Swedenborg’s teachings into the initiation rites and rituals, these would include elements of the Moravian and Sabbatian teachings and their concept of “Holy Sin.”
The occult networks as we know them today would largely spring from the work of individuals during this time frame: such as Hayyim Samuel Jacob Falk, known as the Baal Shem of London who worked closely with Swedenborg, the Moravians, the Sabbatians, as well members of the Stuart Restoration including the Scottish Rite. Falk’s disciple Cagliostro would play a major role spreading the Scottish Rite into Russia, and was involved in the founding of the Egyptian Rite which would later develop into the Rite of Misraim and the Rite of Memphis. These lodges would be unified under Guiseppe Garibaldi as the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Misraim. Garibaldi in turn had been directly associated with Guiseppe Mazzini’s Young Europe movements, which had also spread into the United States as the Young America movement. Through Mazzini’s networks arose the “Redshirts” of Garibaldi, the “Blackshirts” of Oswald Mosley and Mussolini, and the “Brownshirts” of the Nazi Stormtroopers, SA.
Martinez de Pasqually who founded the Elus Cohens Order, was said to be a follower of Swedenborg and created controversy over the dark sexual rituals that were alleged to have been taking place in his lodges. Pasqually’s philosophy behind his initiation rites and rituals would later arise in the form of the Martinist Order, which would also greatly infiltrate into Russia as well as throughout Europe. Even St. Germain and Casanova were on the scene during this period and participated in these intrigues as we shall see.
However, our story will first begin with a man named Sabbatai Zevi.
[Refer here for Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V of this ongoing series.]