T HE S YNCRETIC E SOTERICISM OF

THE R ENAISSANCE :

Historical and Thematic

Congruencies in Cabala
and Alchemy

SAMUEL GARRARD

1. Introduction
2. The Historical Development of the Cabala, Alchemy and Syncretism
2.1 The Lurianic Cabala
2.2 Divine Potentiality
3. Origins and Thematic Comparisons
3.1 Alchemy and Cosmological Perfectionism
3.2 Egyptian and Hebrew Traditions and the Philosophia Perennis
4. The Keys to the Temple: The Pentagrammatron and the Philosopher‟s Stone
4.1 The Kabbalah Denudata
4.2 Conceptions of Knowledge and the Dispera Intentio
4.3 The Aperta Arca, Arcani Artificiosissimi
5. Conclusions and New Paradigms
6. Illustrations
7. Bibliography

1. INTRODUCTION

For such an extensively studied and influential theological phenomenon, the Cabala,

(transliteration of the Hebrew , also spelt Kabbalah, Qabalah, Gabalia) is still largely

misrepresented, ill-defined and relatively obscured. One can see in searching for texts that

compare the two arts of Cabala and alchemy, it is an area that have been explored even less.

To quote Gershom Scholem (1897-1982), „regarded as one of the greatest figures in Western
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SAMUEL GARRARD

culture in our generation‟1 and author of Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1946), the

Cabala „represented a theological attempt, open to only a relative few, whose object was to

find room for an essentially mystical world-outlook within the framework of traditional
Judaism and without altering the latter‟s fundamental principles and behavioural norms.‟2

Loosely defined as a cosmology and esoteric theosophy, the Cabala claims to

illuminate the relationship of mankind to intermediaries, an infinite, transcendental Godhead

and His various levels of revelation. The whole system has of course been developed,

reinterpreted and redefined in the centuries since its inception. The confluence of Cabala and

alchemy provides much scope for study and deserves further research. For the purpose of

this essay I will focus on the syncretic approach to the Lurianic Cabala by Christian writers in

the Renaissance and its parallels with alchemy, providing a historical account of the thematic

similarities of the two disciplines and by looking at the alchemical themes and motifs
employed in a few primarily Cabalistic texts.

2. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE CABALA, ALCHEMY AND SYNCRETISM

The Cabala is rooted in the ascent mysticism of ma’aseh merkabah, based around the

understanding of the throne of the chariot as described in the first chapter of Ezekiel.3 What

endured in the transition of the early Jewish Cabala to the modern Cabala were the basic

principles of the power of language and the word, and the theory of concordance between the
microcosm and macrocosm.

1
Yosef Ben Shlomo, „The Spiritual Universe of Gershom Scholem‟, Modern Judaism, 5 (1985), 21-38 (p. 21).
2
Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah: A Definitive History of the Evolution, Ideas, Leading Figures and
Extraordinary Influence of Jewish Mysticism (New York: Penguin, 1974), p. 190.
3
Ibid., pp.10-15.
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T H E S Y N C R E TIC E S O TER IC IS M O F TH E R E NA IS S AN C E

The thirteenth century saw the emergence of the first example of the tree of life, and

the ten sefirot or emanations.4 At that time there were two Cabalist schools, the theosophical

Gerona circle and the „Gnostics‟ of Castile, centred around the brothers Isaac and Jacob

Kohen who were influenced by Sufiism, the concept of the power of shemot (divine names)

and influential on Rabbi Moses de León (c. 1250-1305) author of the Sefer Zohar (the Book

of Splendour). 5 The other school was that of Abraham ben Samuel and Abulafia of

Saragossa. Abulafia‟s Cabala was ecstatic, with a focus on breathing techniques. He was in

contact with Raymon Llull6 (1232-1315), author of Ars Generalis Ultima or Ars Magna (The

Ultimate General Art) (1305), which expounded a system of logic often referred to as the

origin of information science.7 Abulafia taught Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla (1248-1325)

author of Sha’ are Orah, translated by Paul Riccius as Portae Lucis8 (1516), the first account

of the Cabala readable by western scholars and the first printed illustration of the sefirot and
highly formative of Johann Reuchlin‟s (1455-1522) knowledge of the Jewish Cabala.9

2.1. THE LURIANIC CABALA

Lurianic Cabala was created by Isaac Luria (1534-1572) and, based on the Zohar,

revitalised Cabala with the theory of tsimsum - God‟s withdrawal from himself. This act was

seen as a hierohistorical symbol of divine exile, implying that evil is an intrinsic creative

force not solely attributable to humanity. The doctrine of shevirat-ha-kelim (breaking of the

vessels) and tikkun (restoration) explained how evil is impermanent and called for humanity

to restore perfection to the cosmos through observation of ritual Mitzvot practice. This is

significant because of humanity‟s active role in redemption; it called for Jews to be part of

4
Moshe Idel, „Introduction to the Bison Book Edition‟, in Johann Reuchlin, On the Art of the Kabbalah: De
Arte Cabalistica, trans. by Martin and Sarah Goodman (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), p. v.
5
The Early Kabbalah, pp. 34-36.
6
'Lurianic Cabala' Audio file.
7
Paul Fenton, „Some Judaeo-Arabic fragments by Rabbi Abraham he-Hasid, the Jewish Sufi‟, Journal of
Semitic Studies, 26 (1981), 47-72.
8
See Illustrations, Figure 1.
9
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Western Esoteric Traditions (New York: Oxford, 2008), p. 58.
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SAMUEL GARRARD

the cosmic process, interacting with the cosmic scheme and divinity itself, giving humankind

divine potential.10 The magical implications of this are evident in the popularity and

controversy that surrounded the Cabala in the preceding centuries. Allison P. Coudert,

professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, discusses the specific

restorative and salvational role of this activist Cabalism as comparable with the art of

alchemy and contributory to the “Rosicrucian Enlightenment” as explored by Frances Yates

(1899-1981).11 Tikkun bears a very similar semblance to the alchemical idea of transmutation

and Coudert draws a parallel between alchemist physicians and Cabalists in their role as
creative and even redemptive agents, placing them heretically among the semi-divine.12

Scholem asserted that the Lurianic Cabala, with its messianic or utopian dimension,

was the driving force behind the Sabbatian movement which was formative of secular,

reformative Judaism that followed and was „one of the most powerful forces ever to affect the

inner development of Judaism, both horizontally and in depth.‟13 The Cabala was directly

responsible for the abolishment of the halakhah law. In seeking to reveal paradoxically „what

is by definition hidden‟14 the followers of the Cabala performed their own act of
transmutation by transforming a dogmatic law to a symbolic one.

2.2. DIVINE POTENTIALITY

The theme of potentiality, borne by both Lurianic Cabala and alchemy, stood in

opposition to the Christian doctrine of the fall and original sin and provides a link with the

tradition that began with the translation by Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) and Lodovico

Lazzarelli (1447–1500) of the Corpus Hermeticum, originally written in the second and third

10
Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah, pp. 74-76.
11
Allison P. Coudert, The Impact of the Kabbalah in the Seventeenth Century: The Life and Thought of Francis
Mercury von Helmont (1614-1698) (Leiden: Brill, 1999), p. 121.
12
Ibid., p. 13.
13
Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah, p. 190.
14
David Biale, „Gershom Scholem's Ten Unhistorical Aphorisms on Kabbalah: Text and Commentary‟,
Modern Judaism: Gershom Scholem Memorial Issue, 5 (1985), 67-93 (p. 82).
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T H E S Y N C R E TIC E S O TER IC IS M O F TH E R E NA IS S AN C E

centuries AD.15 The theme of Hermetic potentiality it apparent in the monadic Gnostic

tradition and, rooted in the approach of medieval alchemy and strengthened in the fifteenth

and sixteenth centuries.16 Frances Yates proposed the theory that this divine potentiality in

the individual human was responsible for the confidence and determinism behind the
enlightenment and scientific thrust that was to follow.17

Coudert provides further speculation on Frances Yates‟ theory that Hermeticism and

Renaissance occult philosophy provided the sine qua non for modern science, theorising that

the revival of Pelagianism was formative of the scientific approach.18 One can detect in

Hermetic texts, alchemy, Cabala (in particular Lurianic Cabala) and in Neoplatonism a

“monadic Gnosis;”19 a Gnosticism with no mediator between humanity and God. Cabala and

alchemy were formal means by which one could interact directly with God. Coudert contests

Scholem‟s „internalist view of Jewish history,‟20 noting Jonathan Israel‟s (1946-) challenge

and re-assesses Judeo-Christian interaction in a positive light suggesting that the twin pillars

of progress and toleration , as trumpeted by modern society, are rooted in this Judeo-Christian
contact.

As well as the trait of divine potentiality, both alchemy and Cabala share broader

“esoteric” traits such as the ones defined by Antoine Faivre (born 1934 ); namely

correspondences, living nature, imagination and mediation, the transmutation and

concordance. 21 For example Lurianic Cabala and alchemy approach spirit and matter as part

of a spectrum rather than having separate and independent existences.22 This sets Cabala and

15
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, p. 18.
16
The Impact of the Kabbalah, p. 336-337.
17
Frances Amelia Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (London: Routledge, 1972), pp. 163-172.
18
The Impact of the Kabbalah, p. 338.
19
Ibid., p. 339. cf. Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels, (New York: Random House, 1979), p. 31.
20
The Impact of the Kabbalah, p. 342. cf. Jonathan Israel, European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1985).
21
Modern Esoteric Spirituality ed. by Antoine Faivre and Jacob Needleman (London: SCM Press, 1993), pp.
xv-xix.
22
The Impact of the Kabbalah, p. 124.
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SAMUEL GARRARD

alchemy within the framework of a specific cultural tradition, as compiled in The Western
Esoteric Traditions (2008).

3. ORIGINS AND THEMATIC COMPARISONS

In Renaissance Venice, Jewish communities moved into the new intellectual

revolution, assimilating the European Renaissance and revitalising the previously traditional

esoteric knowledge. It was in 1552 that the first Latin edition of the Sefer Yetzirah (the Book

of Creation) was published and in 1548 Guillaume Postel (1510-1581) translated the Zohar.

The Yetzirah exists in multiple versions, namely the long, short, Saadia and Gra versions and

expounds a speculative, cosmogonical, esoteric philosophy, emphatic of the importance of

the thirty-two paths of wisdom . It focussed on system of the ten sefirot (emanations or

literally enumerations) and the importance of the twenty-two Hebrew letters. It is possible

that the Yetzirah was composed in the multicultural milieu of Alexandria in first few

centuries AD, and had already been “Hermeticised,” which gives a possible explanation for
the text‟s concordance with Renaissance Neoplatonism and Hermeticism.23

A Renaissance revival of the Cabala began with the research of Giovanni Pico della

Mirandola (1463-1494), who wrote 900 Theses (1486). The syncretism that these theses

initiated in European philosophical and scientific circles is given a thorough evaluation by

Stephen A. Farmer in the first four chapters of his Syncretism in the West: Pico’s 900 Theses

(1486): The Evolution of Traditional Religious and Philosophical Systems (1998). An

example of the syncretic, Hermeticised Renaissance Cabala can been seen in the works of

Francesco Giorgi Veneto (1466-1540) who wrote the De Harmonia Mundi Totius Cantica

Tria (1525). His approach was messianic and syncretic, combining Hermetic, Platonic and

23
'Lurianic Cabala'. Audio file.
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T H E S Y N C R E TIC E S O TER IC IS M O F TH E R E NA IS S AN C E

Cabalistic ideas whilst expounding theories such as the correspondence between the

microcosm and macrocosm and a harmonious cosmology. Throughout his work he deployed

an outlook implicitly similar to that of alchemy, demonstrating the veracity and productivity

of Renaissance thought in marrying various traditions. This is further discussed by Frances

Yates in her highly influential The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age (1979).24

3.1. ALCHEMY AND COSMOLOGICAL PERFECTIONISM

Antoine Faivre traced the origins of alchemy to the Greek myth of the golden fleece,

chronicled by John of Antioch in 7 BCE.25 Forming the basis of modern chemistry, alchemy
sought after the philosopher‟s stone that could transform base metals into gold and give

immortality. Having previously been banned in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,26

alchemy received a welcome revival in the sixteenth century, for example in the sponsoring

of alchemy by Rudolf II in Prague.27 Great scientific figures such as Sir Isaac Newton (1643-

1727) held an active interest in alchemy. His alchemical interests have been presented by

writers such as David Brewster and J. M. Keynes and his Hermetic stance formally
acknowledged if epistemologically devalued.28

Practical alchemy is concerned with the transmutation of base metals into gold and

spiritual alchemy with the inner transformation of dense attributes to subtle ones. The Cabala

has been interpreted as a means of understanding the cosmos, the emanations of God, „the

framework of practical magic,‟29 but also as a psychological technique. In the works of Dion

24
Frances Amelia Yates, The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age (London: Routledge, 1979), p.40.
25
Antoine Faivre, The Golden Fleece and Alchemy, with a Foreword by Joscelyn Godwin (Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press, 1993). cf. Antoine Faivre, Toison d'or et Alchimie (Milan: Arche, 1990).
26
Torsten Bock, History of Alchemy from Early to Middle Ages (Saarbrücken: Verlag, 1997) p.12.
27
Peter Marshall, The Magic Circle of Rudolf II: Alchemy and Astrology in Renaissance Prague (New York:
Walker, 2006)
28
John T. Young, „Isaac Newton's Alchemical Notes in the Royal Society‟, Notes and Records of the Royal
Society of London, 60 (2006), 25-34 (pp. 25-26).
29
Israel Regardie, The Tree of Life (York Beach, ME: Weiser, 1972), p. 41.
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SAMUEL GARRARD

Fortune (1890-1946), the Tree of Life is „an attempt to reduce to diagrammatic form every

force and factor in the manifested universe and the soul of man.‟30 Both traditions have

external and internal processes, comparable yet distinct, and integral to the system as a

whole. Exemplified by syncretic texts such as Voarchadumia (1550) Cabala and alchemy are

comparable in their methods of manipulation; the former lexical, the latter elemental. The

transmutation of letters to their prime state can be seen as parallel to the alchemical discipline

of transmutation of metals to their base elements. In this sense these two esoteric disciplines

are magical methods of returning material to its absolute source, both practically and

spiritually. The idea of an absolute spiritual source relies on the presupposed doctrine of

cosmological perfectionism, a doctrine rejected by the likes of Henry More (1614-1687) and

helpful in understanding the reception and rejection of the Cabala in different historical
periods.

This considered, one might speculate that the renewal of Cabalistic interest in the

modern occult revival and New Age movement might be a reaction against the collapse of

meta- narratives and the critiques of absolute knowledge by writers such as Jean-François

Lyotard (1924-1998) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951).31 The modern occult revival

saw a reintegration of Cabalistic elements into modern ritual magic by members and
offshoots of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. In his role in the Hermetic Order of

The Golden Dawn, Samuel Liddell Mac Gregor Mathers (1854-1918) translated parts of the

Kabbalah Denudata (1678) by Baron Christian Knorr von Rosenroth (1636-1689). Mathers

echoed Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) in emphasising a strong Egyptian element in the

ritual work of the order.32

30
Dion Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah (London: Society of the Inner Light, 1998), p. 21.
31
Doug Mann, Structural Idealism: A Theory of Social and Historical Explanation (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid
Laurier University Press, 2002), p.181.
32
Israel Regardie, The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites and Ceremonies of the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (Stella Matutina), sixth edition (St Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 1989).
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T H E S Y N C R E TIC E S O TER IC IS M O F TH E R E NA IS S AN C E

3.2. EGYPTIAN AND HEBREW TRADITIONS AND THE PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS

In The Kabbalah Unveiled the Hebrew- Egypt connection is mentioned when

according to its (unnamed) followers, Abraham „allowed a portion of this mysterious doctrine

to ooze out‟ into Egypt.33 Interestingly Mathers seems to have borrowed his phrasing from a

reading by Reverend Ginsburg some twenty-four years earlier without acknowledging him.34

This affinity between Hebrew and Egyptian culture shows a connection evident at the root of

both alchemy and Cabala. An example of this can be found in Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1654) in

which Kircher focusses on the Bembine Tablet drawing parallels between Arabian alchemy
and the Cabala.35 He writes:

„The Hebrews have such an affinity to the rites, sacrifices, ceremonies and sacred disciplines of the

Egyptians that I am fully persuaded that either the Egyptians were “Hebraicising” or the Hebrews were

“Egypticising.”‟36

Historically the Egyptian pantheon has been shown to be a source of Zoroastrianism

and Orphic wisdom, passed on to Pythagoreanism, Platonism, the works of Proclus, and the

Hebrew Cabala. It is said that the Cabala was given as part of the Oral Law received by

Moses at mount Sinai.37 In many accounts, such as those of Ficino, Hermes Trismegistus is

said to be a contemporary of Moses, pointing to a direct correlation between the Hermetic

and Hebrew traditions and the idea of a philosophia perennis.38 Despite historical debate,

what can be deduced is a similarity in approach, a crossover that aligns both traditions

33
Samuel Liddell Mac Gregor Mathers, The Kabbalah Unveiled (London: George Redway, 1887), p. 5.
34
Christian D. Ginsburg, Kabbalah: Its Doctrines, Development and Literature (London: Routledge, 1925),
p.84. cf. Christian D. Ginsburg, 'The Kabbalah‟, (1863) in Bible Believers
<http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/kabbalah.htm> [accessed 3 June, 2010].
35
Athanasius Kircher, „Oedipus Aegyptiacus: Tom IIA (all) and "Cabala" from Tom IIB (pp. 209-399)‟ (Rome,
1653) in Bill Heidrick's Cross References <http://www.billheidrick.com/index.htm> [accessed 10 June, 2010].
36
Paula Findlen, Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man That Knew Everything (New York: Routledge, 2004), p.
143.
37
Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah, p. 5.
38
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, p. 37.
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SAMUEL GARRARD

philosophically and a place in the esoteric initiatory idea of an ancient theology or prisca
theologia.39

4. THE KEYS TO THE TEMPLE:

THE PENTAGRAMMATRON AND THE PHILOSOPHER‟S STONE

In De Verbo Mirifico (The Wonder Working Word) (1494) Reuchlin presented a

sacralised magic able to empower and energise religious ritual and ceremony. His art of the

wonder-working word can be distinguished from magic in its technique, object and effect. He

defends divine theurgy, or religious magia, in line with the prisca theologia, as distinct from

goetia, or demonic magic, echoing authors such as Porphyry (c.232-c.305) whilst remaining

cautiously ambivalent in his personal stance on magic. This is unsurprising given the

historical context when Christian authorities were still very much severely resistant towards

any theory that might have pagan undertones. However, Reuchlin‟s fourth science of

wonders, soliloquia, the method of obtaining what one asks for through prayer, is very much
an alternative working thesis for operative magic.40

Charles Zika, professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne, names sixteenth

century historian Ludwig Geiger (1848-1919) as the root cause for the lack of a critical

response to De Verbo Mirifico interpretations of it as „personal mystical gropings.‟41 Zika

contests this interpretation, viewing the work as an exploration of the divine, hidden

properties of language as instrumental, not just to internal mystical experience but external

miraculous achievement. As an interesting modern parallel, Françoise Bonardel, professor of

religion at the University of the Sorbonne, provides his revealing insights of the workof

39
Ibid., p. 7.
40
Charles Zika, „Reuchlin‟s De Verbo Mirifico and the Magic Debate of the Late Fifteenth Century‟, Journal of
the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 39 (1976), 104-138 (p.116).
41
Ibid. p.104.
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T H E S Y N C R E TIC E S O TER IC IS M O F TH E R E NA IS S AN C E

French poets Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) and Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867). He

describes their work as ontological alchemy, intrinsically involved with “the Word,” but

essentially alchemy may be described as lying somewhere between science and religion and

in contrast the Cabala may be seen as lying between religion and language.42 In this way both
the Cabala and alchemy are ars liminæ, liminal disciplines.

Reuchlin advocated Pythagoreanism, drawing comparisons with the Cabala and

asserting that man holds dominion over nature and achieves miraculous deeds „by the one

name.‟43 The divine word is the word that has the potential to actualise and animate man‟s

philosophies and the divine names.44 In this way the wonder-working word, presented by

Reuchlin and other early Christian esotericists as the pentagrammaton, YHSVH, is akin to

the philosopher‟s stone in alchemical theory because both hold power and divine animating
potentiality, which by knowledge and exploration can be harnessed.

4.1. THE KABBALAH DENUDATA

Rosenroth was a polyglot, privy councillor and advisor educated in Wittenburg and

Leibzig who settled in Sulzbach, Germany, where he spread the doctrine of Lurianic Cabala.

He wrote the Kabbalah Denudata in 1684. In line with Pico and Reuchlin, he applied a

Christian interpretation of the Cabala. Scholem wrote that the Kabbalah Denudata „served as

the principal source for all non-Jewish literature on Kabbalah until the end of the 19th

century.‟45 At the beginning of the Kabbalah Denudata is a dedication „to the lover of
Hebrew, Chemistry, and Philosophy,‟46 typical of the cultural syncretism of the era.

42
Françoise Bonardel, „Alchemical Esotericism and the Hermeneutics of Culture‟, in Modern Esoteric
Spirituality, pp. 71-100 (p. 92).
43
Charles Zika, p.111.
44
Ibid., p.135.
45
Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah, p. 416.
46
Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, Kabbala Denudata, sive Doctrina Hebræorum Transcendentalis et
Metaphysica Atque Theologia (Sulzbach, 1684) in Bill Heidrick's Cross References
<http://www.billheidrick.com/Orpd/KRKD/index.htm> [accessed 20 April 2010].
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SAMUEL GARRARD

On the third page of the text, in reference to the virginal figure in the frontispiece,
there are six sentences:

She looks to the heavens and recognizes the Trinity in its ten names.
Illuminating with a spiritual light, she dispels pagan darkness
She calms the internal turbulence aroused by passions.
She disentangles the confused minerals in the heart.
She enters the innermost sanctuary and surveys the hidden chamber. 47

Most telling of these descriptions is „she disentangles the confused minerals in the heart.‟

Could this not be translated alternatively as „she changes the abstruse course in the heart of

minerals,‟48 which would imply some kind of alchemical transmutation. This claim, as well

as the dedication, would have appealed to those alchemists in Sulzbach, an Iron mining town

that attracted alchemists. 49 Next to the woman in the image is a tempestuous sea, perhaps

symbolising the „internal turbulence, aroused by the passions‟ in the fourth sentence giving

the Cabala the potential to transform externally and internally, in minerals as well as in the
psychological constitution.50

4.2. CONCEPTIONS OF KNOWLEDGE AND THE DISPERA INTENTIO

Coudert notes the similarities between the frontispiece of Kabbalah Denudata and

that of Abraham Yagel‟s (1553-c.1623) Gei Hizzayon (A Valley of Vision). Both illustrations

give similar representations of the Cabala, using women, the tree of life, a palace and other

47
Allison P. Coudert, „A Quaker-Kabbalist Controversy: George Fox's Reaction to Francis Mercury van
Helmont‟, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 39 (1976) 171-189 (p. 177). cf. Christian Knorr von
Rosenroth, „Explicat ambiguos utroque in Fœdere sensus, /Alta videt, denoque notat cognomina Trinum, /
Lucens Pneumaticae, paganas dificutit umbras, / Edomat internos, queis spumat Passio fluctus, / Alter at
abstrusos minerarum in corde meatus, / Intrat in Arcana, & secreta palatial lustrat‟.
48
Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, „Alter at abstrusos minerarum in corde meatus‟. cf. 'Lurianic Cabala'. Audio
file.
49
'Lurianic Cabala'. Audio file.
50
„A Quaker-Kabbalist Controversy, p. 177.
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T H E S Y N C R E TIC E S O TER IC IS M O F TH E R E NA IS S AN C E

symbols to create a syncretic vision in which the familiar modern distinctions between

science, magic, alchemy and religious ideas are nonexistent. 51 In using the image of a palace

- a standard alchemical motif for secret and exclusive wisdom - one can deduce a reference to

the ancient conception of knowledge as secret and exclusive. This stands in contrast to the

modern conception as a „commodity that can be packaged and distributed and thus made

available to anybody.‟52 It is interesting to note that van Helmont, author of the anonymous

last treatise of the Kabbalah Denudata, seemed to contradict this symbolic reference to the

ancient conception of knowledge in prolifically discussing his own ideas with everyone for
fear that they would not be known, in his later years.53

In addition to the ancient notion of knowledge as a secret gem, hidden for those

willing to search, there is a certain coding of language discernable in both alchemical and

Cabbalistic texts. This is the dispersa intentio referred to by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

(1486-1535) in the conclusion of his De Occulta Philosophia54 and discussed by Vittoria

Perrone Compagni.55 Coding, or hiding meaning within an argument is a hermeneutical

technique employed throughout ancient esoteric writing through to the present day. In the

introduction to The Sea Priestess (1935), Dion Fortune employs the same technique, noting
to her readers

The Mystical Qabalah gives the theory but the novels give the practice. Those who read the novels

without having studied the Qabalah will get hints and a stimulus to their subconscious. Those who

study the Qabalah without reading the novels will get an interesting intellectual jig-saw puzzle to play

with; but those who study The Mystical Qabalah with the help of the novels get the keys of the Temple

put into their hands.‟56

51
See Illustrations, Figure 2.
52
The Impact of the Kabbalah, p. 150.
53
Ibid., p. 151.
54
Cornelius Heinrich Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, (Leiden: Brill, 1992), pp. 599-600.
55
Vittoria Perrone Compagni, „“Dispersa Intentio.” Magic and Scepticism in Agrippa‟, Early Science and
Medicine, 5 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 160-177.
56
Dion Fortune, The Sea Priestess (York Beach, ME: Red Wheel/Weiser, 2003), p. xiii.
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SAMUEL GARRARD

Though apparent in much of the esoteric corpus, dispersa intentio is particularly

prevalent in alchemical and Cabalistic literature. It is a non-linear textual technique that

involves the reader in an active process of discovery. In this way the reader becomes more

personally involved in the reading. Agrippa, influenced by Reuchlin, emphasised that magic

originated from divine revelation, not from a rational process. This considered, I would

conclude that the textual technique mentioned corresponds with the revelatory nature of

esoteric knowledge by way of emulation.57 Knowledge perceived as divine revelation, and

connected to the cultural tradition of “gnosis” originating in Alexandria in the first few

centuries,58 is evident in many esoteric texts and specifically in Cabalistic literature. It is

interesting to note that the word “Cabala” comes from the verb “qibbel” (‫)לבק‬, to receive.59

4.3. THE APERTA ARCA, ARCANI ARTIFICIOSISSIMI

In Aperta Arca, Arcani Artificiosissimi: Oder: des Grossen und Kleinen Bauers

(1617) by Johann Grasshoff, the author describes a divine revelation, combining imagery

from both alchemical and Cabalistic lore. He continues to explain his vision, deftly justifying

Hermetic sciences. Within a carefully worded Christian context he justifies the theories of

higher and lower astrology, natural magic and gives instruction on preparing the

philosopher‟s stone. This argument for magia naturalis, as justified within the orthodox

Christian hierarchy but subservient to God, can be seen in the writings of Ficino, Pico,

Reuchlin and other esoteric writers of the period. This was necessary considering the grave

personal danger in disclosing heretical material, yet behind this careful wording one discerns
a rich fusion of alchemical-Cabalistic ideas.60

57
Vittoria Perrone Compagni, p.163.
58
Wouter J. Hanegraaff, „On the Construction of Esoteric Traditions‟, in Western Esotericism and the Science of
Religion, ed. by Antoine Faivre and Wouter J. Hanegraaff (Leuven: Peeters. 1998) p. 19.
59
Bernard Pick, The Cabala: Its Influence on Judaism and Christianity (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2003) p. 9.
60
Johann Grasshoff, Aperta Arca, Arcani Artificiosissimi: Oder: des Grossen und Kleinen Bauers (Hamburg:
Freidrich Conrad Greflinger, 1705), pp. 117 – 126. cf. „The Natural Round Physick or Philosophy of the
Alchymical Cabalistical Vision: Transcribed from British Library MS. Sloane 3639, by Jon Evans‟ in The
Alchemy Web Site, <http://www.levity.com/alchemy/alchcab.html> [accessed 11 June].
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T H E S Y N C R E TIC E S O TER IC IS M O F TH E R E NA IS S AN C E

Grasshoff‟s vision is also depicted as an illustration and bears a striking resemblance

to that in the frontispiece of the Kabbalah Denudata.61 In both images there is the

illuminating star, a figure, and the shape of the sefirot. In Figure 2 the sefirot are seen within

the illuminating light and in Figure 3 they are in the stars, earth and light surrounding the

figure. In the first illustration the figure holds a set of keys, symbolic perhaps of the Cabala in

general or the wonder-working word, in any case the key to Cabalistic mysteries which is

parallel to the one key of alchemy – the philosopher‟s stone. However, she doesn‟t hold one

key but a set of keys and there is only one lock on the door. Perhaps this suggests that there

are many paths, or maybe that one needs to accrue a knowledge of the keys to discern which

one will fit. In both images we also see the earth and vegetation, possibly symbolising the

confluence of the spiritual and telluric, and the need to be connected to both. This may be

implied in Figure 2 where the figure has one foot on the ground and one in the air, and also in
the Figure 3 where his feet are on the ground whilst his head is amongst the heavenly bodies.

Grasshoff begins by describing a star, above the sun, moon and firmament, shining so

brightly that he could not look at it.62 He continues to describe it as redder than the sun and

eventually explaining that it is the Star of Wisdom and Lord of Nature.63 The emphasis on the

redness of the star may hint at the rubedo64 stage, in the four stages of alchemy, associated

with the unification of the finite and infinite; the earthly and divine realm. This seems to fit as

it was made by God and so is a mediator between him, the infinite, and mankind, the finite. It

is noted that the star was created by God, and he is to be blessed for making it, edging

tactfully away from pagan pantheism. One could draw a parallel here with the star as the first

61
See Illustrations, Figure 3. cf. Figure 2.
62
Johann Grasshoff, p. 117, „da ershien über Sonn und Mond und dem Firmament ein Stern der Schien so hell /
daß ich ihn night recht ansehen konte‟.
63
Ibid., p. 119, „der Stern der Weisheit / und das ewige Licht‟.
64
Susan Campanini, „Alchemy in Pieyre de Mandiargues' "Le Diamant"‟, The French Review, 50 (1977), 602-
609 (pp. 603-604).
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SAMUEL GARRARD

effect of the first creation (but under the creator,) 65 and the first sefirot, Kether, described by

Luria as the first effect, distinct from ein sof, the first cause.66 This essential distinction was

expressied in Lurianic Cabala, giving wording to an anti-pantheistic understanding of

nothingness, compatible with the ideas of Renaissance Hermeticism.67 A distinctly Lurianic

cosmology and hierarchy is described in Grasshoff‟s vision, in which a transcendental

divinity emanating a first effect bears a strong resemblance to Hermetic-alchemical ideas.

The potential, animating power of the divine word is given emphasis and reiterated

throughout the Aperta Arca, Arcani Artificiosissimi.68 In a syncretic sweep of the quill the

author gives the divine word the properties traditionally associated with the philosophers

stone, (ie. the ability to make one young again, and to purify,) albeit to the Sun, not a
human.69

In the text he presents an astrological cosmos where the stellar forces constantly

impregnate the earth with potentiality, rejecting fate-determining astrology. He promotes

alchemy as the process of nourishing one‟s relationship with the Lord of Nature, imitating the

the great red star and channelling it‟s purifying power in the manifest world; as seen in the

image where the star is at the centre of his body and the earth.70 This reiterates the Cabalistic-

alchemical theme of potentiality within the body of the human and the earth, and how the

connection to the Red Star, or essential force of nature, is at the heart of the Cabala and

alchemy. The author continues in the last chapters to give instructions on preparing the

philosopher‟s stone, recalling always the spiritual dimension and duty to God, or one‟s higher

divine self as essential to the transmutatory operation. The text is a brilliant example of the

65
Ibid., p. 121, „dieses Feuer die erste Erschaffung gewesen ist [...] hatte es doch seinen Schopffer müssen
Geshorfam leiften‟.
66
Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah, pp. 88-96.
67
David Biale, pp. 79-80.
68
Johann Grasshoff, p. 121, „durch diesen Spruch hat dieses unsichtbahre Feuer angefangen zu dominiren‟.
69
Ibid., p. 123, „Da aber diese trafftige Worte dennd gefallen / hat die Sonne den Saamen empfangen sich zu
verjungiren und zu reinigen’.
70
See Illustrations, Figure 3.
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T H E S Y N C R E TIC E S O TER IC IS M O F TH E R E NA IS S AN C E

connection seen in the potentiality, as discussed earlier, of Cabala and alchemy, the two ars
liminæ.

5. CONCLUSIONS AND NEW PARADIGMS

Although the esoteric traditions displayed a phallocentric-anthropocentricity,

available for critique from feminist, animal-studies and post-humanist stances, it is a different

anthropocentricity that places humankind at the centre of the spiritual and physical

universe.71 In contrast, within the Industrial Age the monetary figure, instead of the human
figure, enjoys a centrality, replacing Reuchlin‟s “WWW” (“Wonder-Working Word”) that

put the power in the body of humanity and the earth, with the new “www” (world-wide web)

which puts the power in the body of the machine. In modern Western culture it could be

argued that the human body and divine potential is displaced, devalued and replaced by

simulacrum;72 the manifesting potential of these temple keys has become the potential of a

digital screen, and magic is replaced by the rattling of plastic buttons. Nevertheless, with

esoteric interest on the rise, if still disputed by scholars in its demarcation, perhaps the doors
to the Palace of Secrets are reopening once more. 73

The Cabala and alchemy are theologies of potentiality and cosmic perfectionism –

ideas that seem outdated by a modern culture still affected by years of domination by

industrialism, scientific positivism and materialism. The disciplines of the Cabala and

alchemy sought an absolute truth; be it through the restorative process of tikkun, the search

for the philosopher‟s stone, or the wonder-working word - all transcendental in their claim to

divine potentiality. We can also see internal stylistic and thematic congruencies in both arts

71
See Zoographies (2008) for a fascination revaluation of Western anthropocentric values.
72
Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, trans. by Sheila Faria Glaser (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of
Michigan Press, 1994), p. 1.
73
Wouter J. Hanegraaff, pp.18-19.
 18
SAMUEL GARRARD

stemming back to the syncretic Hebrew-Egyptian culture of Alexandria that not only

illuminate the nature of these ancient forms of esoteric spiritual expression but raise questions

concerning our contemporary weltanschauuung and methods of ontological analysis and

valuation. In looking at these syncretic texts, what is illuminating is the emphasis placed,

sometimes very subtly, on the importance of humankind in playing a central role in the

cosmic plan; the potential of the microcosm realising its affinity with the macrocosm and the
essential divinity within the heart of humanity.
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T H E S Y N C R E TIC E S O TER IC IS M O F TH E R E NA IS S AN C E

6. ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1

Photo showing the title page of the Latin translation of the Sha’arei Orah by Paul Riccius, as
Portae Lucis (1516). The illustration shows the first depiction of the Cabala with the ten
sefirot.74

74
Paul Riccius, Portae Lucis, (1519) in Cologne University of Applied Sciences <http://www.verwaltung.fh-
koeln.de/imperia/md/images/dez5/pressefotos/2008/portahebraicorum_buch_portae_lucis.jpg> [accessed 08
May 2010].
 20
SAMUEL GARRARD

Figure 2

Photo showing the frontispiece and title page of the Kabbalah Denudata (1678). The
illustration depicts a virginal woman, representing the Cabala, a temple, divine light and the
keys to the temple in her hand.75

75
Christian Knorr von Rosenroth.
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T H E S Y N C R E TIC E S O TER IC IS M O F TH E R E NA IS S AN C E

Figure 3.

A page from Aperta Arca, Arcani Artificiosissimi (1617) depicting a syncretic Cabalistic-
alchemical cosmological image. 76

76
Johann Grasshoff, p. 116.
 22
SAMUEL GARRARD
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