Esoteric Coffeehouse

The history of the Knights Templar may be fascinating, but it does not compare with the history of their legend. It is hence regrettable that insufficient research has been done in Knights Templar mythology. Whether the Templars were truly in possession of some wondrous knowledge, the Grail, or they were devil worshippers, we will probably never know. What we can record is what the people believed, and some continue to believe, about the Templars.

From what I have been able to fathom, the Templar-mania is no coincidence. Even during the existence of the knighthood, they were the object of an intense medieval propaganda. At the beginning, the propaganda was positive, even idealistic, initiated by high church figures and popular troubadours. Then, as Philip IV and Pope Clement began to defame the order, the publicity became very negative. The story they told about the Templars resembled a modern ‘conspiracy theory’. In any case, in the 13-14th centuries, the Templars were, as it were, “big news”. Today, books like those of Dan Brown or Michael Baigent only perpetuate a medieval news story.

The positive propaganda was initiated by an influential monk, St. Bernard of Clairvaux. St Bernard was an amazing figure: he single-handedly organized the reformist Cistercian order in Europe, preached the Second Crusade and even arbitrated the choice of the Pope (for more on him, see 1). In addition, St Bernard was a staunch supporter of the Templar order. In fact, much of Templar ideology came from St Bernard’s vision. In 1128, at the Council of Troyes, he penned down the outline of the Templar Rules, which became a standard of chivalry in the epoch (2). Later on, he wrote “In the Praise of the New Knighthood”, which portrayed the Templars as an ideal knightly order that combined military chivalry and monk dedication (3). In his view, the Templars were probably meant to be more than an order – but an archetype of the ‘new knighthood’. In this spirit, he urged the entire European knightly class to join the Templars (4).

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As with many legends, the recorded history of the Knights Templar is probably less spectacular than people’s imagination. The Templar order was one of the several military monk institutions established in the High Middle Ages, amongst which the other prominent ones were the Knights Hospitaller and the Teutonic Knights. Yet it was only the Templars that captured the imagination of the West as an archetype of the secret society.

The Knights Templar were established around 1119 by Hugh de Paynes (Payns), a French knight who had participated in the First Crusade and helped in the capture of Jerusalem from the Moslems (1). To quickly recap, the First Crusade (1095-1099) was the most successful of all, as mostly French (or Franks as they were called then) knights had conquered Jerusalem, as well as several important cities in the Middle East, such as Antioch and Tripoli. Following the conquest, the Crusaders established a system of feudal states in the region, out of which the Kingdom of Jerusalem was the most important. The Crusader success created a new pilgrimage fervor in the West, with thousands of pilgrims taking the inland route through Byzantium to reach the Holy Land. When they did so, they often found themselves robbed or killed by bands of Turks and other raiders (2). It was this situation that prompted Hugh de Paynes, with eight other knights, to propose the establishment of a monk order that would actually protect the pilgrims and locals from Moslem raids. The King of Jerusalem, Baldwin II, was happy to grant this new order and actually gave them headquarters on the Holy Mount, in the captured Al-Aqsa mosque (3).

But why a monk order, and not a regular army corps? The answer is not very straightforward. It is said that Paynes was inspired by the Hospitallers, a monk order that had set up a Hospital in Jerusalem to feed and treat poor pilgrims. Yet at this stage the Hospitallers apparently were not a military order (4). The Templars were also influenced by the Cistercian movement in southern France, which was a supranational monk order which contributed to the flourishing of learning in the High Middle Ages (5). Yet, again, as all monk orders of Europe, the Cistercians were not a fighting order. An early analysis proposed that the model of the Templars might not have come from Christianity at all, but from a mysterious warlike group of Moslems called the Assassins (6). The Assassins were an Islamic warrior sect that belonged to a particular Shi’ite branch, called the Ismailis (the Moslem community had suffered a schism in the early 800s into the majoritary Sunnite and the minority Shiite). This connection is hard to establish, as the Templars and the Assassins were in opposite camps. It is perhaps safer to conclude that the Templar order, just as the Hospitaller and Teutonic knights, were products of their own age, which sought to achieve divine salvation through holy conquest. The First Crusade was led under this premise, and the Templars only continued its ethos.

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I have decided that, from time to time, I should talk about the practical applications of esotericism, since, after all, the esoteric perspective combines theory and practice. What better way to start this than to talk about one of the most ‘practical’ of esotericists, Rudolf Steiner, whose teachings are still highly relevant today?   

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), the founder of Anthroposophy, can be considered as one of the most brilliant minds of esotericism. His system was not necessarily the most original or insightful, but his genius rested in the ability to create not only a coherent philosophical system but a practical framework as well. By comparison with the mostly theoretical theosophy, whence it drew its roots, anthroposophy has spawned a great number of practical applications. Amongst Steiner’s contributions, the most successful ones have been the Waldorf schools of education, eurythmy (an art of dancing) and biodynamic agriculture. For the purpose of this article, I wish to briefly focus on Steiner’s biodynamic (BD) farming approach.

Steiner’s outspoken interest in agriculture came only late in his life; however, the roots must be sought in his childhood and youth. Steiner grew up in various village communities of the Austrian empire and developed a love of nature and agricultural pursuits. When Steiner was only 21, he met a medicinal herb gatherer, by the name of Felix Kogutski, who imparted to him a new, spiritual perspective of nature (1). Kogutski appeared to have a profound effect on Steiner and was the one to introduce him to his first ‘master’. Steiner’s continuing interest in plant life and dynamics attracted him to the study of Wolfgang Goethe, a revolutionary philosopher of nature. Goethe believed in the existence of an Urpflanze, an archetypal plant form which was an intermediate link between the spiritual realm and the objective reality. Steiner was influenced by Goethe’s views of plant morphology and dynamics in his own speculations (2).

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I have mentioned in my previous articles about the influence of Eliphas Levi on the Rider-Waite tarot, the most common tarot pack in the world today. Today, I want to look slightly more in depth at how Levi’s Kabbalistico-Egyptian theory of tarot origins blended together with A.E. Waite’s own interpretations to yield the well-known cards of modern tarot. To do so, I will look at the symbolism and meaning of the 10th Rider-Waite tarot card: the Wheel of Fortune.

The Wheel of Fortune is usually considered a good card, bringing about luck, change, and good fortune (1). Yet other people deem it is a bad card, because it signals major change, even if usually of a good sort (2). Obviously, the value that we bestow on this card is linked with the perception we have of change in general.

A.E. Waite, the spiritual author of the Rider-Waite tarot, openly attributed the conception of the Wheel of Fortune card to Eliphas Levi (3). Therefore, a good starting point to understanding this card would be to delve into Levi’s vision of the Wheel of Fortune.

Levi built an entire philosophy surrounding the word “Rota” which means “wheel” in Latin. He believed that Rota stood for the enigmatic Labarum, or the monogram of Christ, and that it hid the whole of magical science within it (4). He furthermore affirmed that Rota was transliterated into Taro by esoteric adepts. He also played with the letters in the tradition of the Kabbala to form the word “Tora” as well – the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. This word play is clearly visible on the card’s wheel spokes: you can read clockwise Taro, counterclockwise Tora and starting on the bottom Rota. This is of course, not all there is, because the four letters also point out to the cardinal signs. Thus one can also imagine the movement of the sun from east (Alpha) to west (Omega). Interspersed between this circulatory movement is the name of God (YHWH) inscribed on the wheel, to suggest that all this change is overseen by the divine will. Also on the spokes of the inner wheel (there are three enclosed wheels one into the other) are the alchemical symbols of sulphur, salt and mercury as well as water. This reflects Levi’s desire of combining all esoteric knowledge, including alchemy, into the “Taro”. Nevertheless, these particular symbols were introduced by Waite according to Golden Dawn imagery (5).

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Hi everyone,

I have decided to expand the scope of my Esoteric Coffeehouse blog and to provide Esoteric news through Twitter. Hence I will try to send any interesting Esoteric news, links, articles etc I hear about on my Twitter account which you can follow at http://twitter.com/johedesan . If you don’t have an account, it’s really simple to make one at http://www.twitter.com.  Once you’re on, you can click on ‘Find other people’ and type johedesan; it should come up. Note that the Esoteric news I will send will be headlined as Esoteric (I’m saying this because I sometimes twitter about other things I’m involved in).

See you on Twitter

Jo