The Tree of Life considered as a Memory Theatre.

The "memory theatre" was an aspect of a science of the imagination which was practiced from Classical times up to the Renaissance. It was used for the development of memory, and also as a "mind-map" - a connected symbolic space, often represented as a building, which spanned the imaginative or conceptual faculty.

The Kabbalistic Tree of Life, along with its associated correspondences, is an excellent example of this latter idea.

I like to think of the Tree correspondences as "memory theatre", as there is great utility in this idea, and it is a beautiful and accessible entry-point for a modern person to enter into an archiac aspect of right-brain science: a world of images, associations, symbols, inarticulate connections, and qualitative thinking.

The definitive text is The Art of Memory by Francis Yates.


http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/theatre/theatre.htm

The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception or Mystic Christianity An Elementary Treatise Upon
Man's Past Evolution, Present Constitution
and Future Development
By Max Heindel

http://www.rosicrucian.com/rcc/rcceng00.htm

Confessio Fraternitatis
[The original edition of the Confessio Fraternitatis appeared in the year 1615 in a Latin work entitled "Secretioris Philosophiae Consideratio Brevio a Philippo a Gabella, Philosophiae studioso, conscripta; et nunc primum una cum Confessione Fraternitatis R.C." The following translation, taken from A.E. Waite's edition, is accredited to Thomas Vaughan (Eugenius Philalethes) and was made from the later German version of the manifesto.]

Preface

Here, gentle reader, you shall finde incorporated in our Confession thirty-seven reasons of purpose and intention, the which according to thy pleasure thou mayst seek out and compare together, considering within thyself if they be sufficient to allure thee. Verily, it requires no small pains to induce any one to believe what doth not yet appear, but when it shall be revealed in the full blaze of day, I suppose we should be ashamed of such questionings. And as we do now securely call the Pope Antichrist, which was formerly a capital offence in every place, so we know certainly that what we here keep secret we shall in the future thunder forth with uplifted voice, the which, reader, with us desire with all thy heart that it may happen most speedily.

"Fratres R.C."

Confessio Fraternitatis R.C.
ad
Eruditos Europae.

Chapter I.

Whatsoever you have heard, O mortals, concerning our Fraternity by the trumpet sound of the Fama R.C., do not either believe it hastily, or willfully suspect it. It is Jehovah who, seeing how the world is falling to decay, and near its end, doth hasten it again to its beginning, inverting the course of Nature, and so what heretofore hath been sought with great pains and dayly labour He doth lay open now to those thinking of no such thing, offering it to the willing and thrusting it upon the reluctant, that it may become to the good that which will smooth the troubles of human life and break the violence of unexpected blows of Fortune, but to the ungodly that which will augment their sins and their punishments.

http://www.crcsite.org/printconfessio.htm

[The first traceable printed edition of Fama Fraternitatis dates 1614. However, there is some evidence that Fama was circulated in the manuscript form prior to that time. It was first published in German and then in 1615 in Latin. Fama is viewed as the key document of the Rosicrucian movement. The following translation, taken from A.E. Waite's edition, is accredited to Thomas Vaughan (Eugenius Philalethes). Footnotes: Andre Rotkiewicz, Latin translations: Carl Williams ]

Fama Fraternitatis
or
A Discovery of the Fraternity of the most Laudable
Order of the Rosy Cross

Seeing the only wise and merciful God in these latter days hath poured out so richly His mercy and goodness to mankind, whereby we do attain more and more to the perfect knowledge of his Son Jesus Christ and of Nature, that justly we may boast of the happy time, wherein there is not only discovered unto us the half part of the world, which was heretofore unknown and hidden, but He hath also made manifest unto us many wonderful, and never-heretofore seen works and creatures of Nature, and, moreover, hath raised men, imbued with great wisdom, who might partly renew and reduce all arts (in this our spotted and imperfect age) to perfection, so that finally man might thereby understand his own nobleness and worth, and why he is called Microcosmus, and how far his knowledge extendeth in Nature.

Although the rude world herewith will be but little pleased, but rather smile and scoff thereat; also the pride and covetousness of the learned is so great, it will not suffer them to agree together; but were they united, they might, out of all those things which in this our age God doth so richly bestow upon us, collect Librum Naturae, or, a Perfect Method of all Arts. But such is their opposition that they still keep, and are loth to leave, the old course, esteeming Porphyry, Aristotle, and Galen, yea, and that which hath but a mere show of learning, more than the clear and manifested Light and Truth. Those, if they were now living, with much joy would leave their erroneous doctrines; but here is too great weakness for such a great work. And although in Theologie, Physic, and Mathematic, the truth doth oppose it itself, nevertheless, the old Enemy, by his subtilty and craft, doth shew himself in hindering every good purpose by his instruments and contentious wavering people.

To such an intention of a general reformation, the most godly and highly-illuminated Father, our Brother, C.R.C., a German, the chief and original of our Fraternity, hath much and long time laboured, who, by reason of his poverty (although descended of noble parents) in the fifth year of his age was placed in a cloyster, where he had learned indifferently the Greek and Latin tongues, and (upon his earnest desire and request), being yet in his growing years, was associated to a Brother, P.A.L., who had determined to go to the Holy Land. Although this Brother died in Ciprus, and so never came to Jerusalem, yet our Brother C.R.C. did not return, but shipped himself over, and went to Damasco, minding from thence to go to Jerusalem. But by reason of the feebleness of his body he remained still there, and by his skill in physic he obtained much favour with the Turks, and in the meantime he became acquainted with the Wise Men of Damcar in Arabia, and beheld what great wonders they wrought, and how Nature was discovered unto them.

http://www.crcsite.org/printfama.htm

Albertus Magnus

The leading figure in thirteenth century learning was Albertus Magnus, a Dominican friar who was finally canonized as a saint in 1931. Albertus, who has left us eight books on physics, six on psychology, eight on astronomy, twenty-six on zoology, seven on botany, five on minerals, one on geography, and three on life in general, was strongly influenced by Aristotle. Believing god acts through natural causes in natural phenomena, he conducted experiments in the field of animal behavior and thus became an important forerunner of modern experimental science. He was known to have had miraculous visions since childhood.

He was also an ardent philosopher of magic and expressed a very positive attitude toward the magi of the Bible as "masters who philosophize about the universe and ... search the future in stars."

http://www.williamjames.com/History/MEDIEVAL.htm

"Around the man and woman draw a ring, From which an equal-sided square springs forth. From this derive a triangle, which should touch The sphere on every side: and then the Stone
Will have arisen. If this is not clear, Then learn Geometry, and know it all."
(Godwin, Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens, p. 147.)

The master in the emblem points his compass from circle to circle, or as it has been interpreted, from square to circle, demonstrating the squaring of the circle, the quintessential symbol of the marriage of heaven and earth. This puzzle was originally posed by the Delphic Oracle, to construct a square with a perimeter equal to the circumference of a circle.

The reconciliation of opposites through their mutual attraction brings man and woman together symbolizing the One thing, the dot or circle. Although they are one, they are also two, equaling by addition three they become the triangle and their multiplicity produces four, the square. From this progression from dot to line to triangle and square, they return again to one, the larger circle, from the union of corporeal love to all-encompassing spiritual Love. Spheres within spheres, a Jacob’s ladder, a golden chain. As the One thing, the man and woman alchemically join as "our fruitful hermaphrodite," the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, to produce the philosopher’s stone in new life. The joining creates the tetractys: two heads, four arms and four legs. To perfect a body in the animal, plant, or mineral realms, the alchemist must separate the one into the four elements of Air, Water, Fire, and Earth. These elements are again separated and refined by fours. Air is divided into the "Air of Air," "Water of Air," "Fire of Air," and "Earth of Air." Divide the 4 by 4 four times to get the three: 4x4x4=48: 4+8=12:1+2=3. Once these separations are completed, they are recombined into one again to be separated by three principals, sulphur, mercury, and salt. The three principals, once separated, are recombined and subjected to a maximum of seven slow distillations (the one becomes four+three= seven: the circle articulated as square and triangle). Finally, the three purified principals are joined together as One in the form of the universal medicine, the philosopher’s stone, the Miracle of the One Thing, the large circle surrounding all of the work of the one, four, and three in the emblem.

http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/Eberly/AtalantaCommentary.html

Hermes Trismegistus - Pater philosophorum
The dissemination of the Corpus Hermeticum

Thoth and Hermes

For the Egyptians, Thoth was a versatile god. Initially, he was worshipped as a lunar god and many of his functions were derived by association. As the moon is illuminated by the sun, so Thoth derived his authority from the fact that he was the scribe of the sun god Re. From a lunar god he eventually also became the god of time, seasonal change, the cosmic order and the rhythm of daily life. He was the inventor of script, the God of letters and esoteric knowledge. As such he was called 'the mysterious one' or 'the unknown one'. Because of his magical powers he was looked upon as a physician and guide of the souls to the kingdom of the Gods.

The Greeks in Egypt identified Thoth with Hermes, who was also associated with the moon, medicine and the underworld. He was the messenger of the Gods and the interpreter of the divine will. Hermes became Hermes Trismegistus through his assimilation with Thoth. He derived his title 'Thrice-greatest' from his Egyptian predecessor, whose eptithet 'great' was repeated twice or three times by way of superlative (cf. Fowden).

Hermes Trismegistus was regarded as a God, a king, or a priest and prophet, who was to have lived in Egypt around the time of Moses. He was also credited with the talents and inventions of Thoth, including the hieroglyphs. His teachings were inscribed in this holy language on the 'pillars of Hermes'. Philosophers such as Pythagoras and Plato were to have derived their wisdom from the hieroglyphs.

These notions were still current in late-classical times. Tertullian (ca 160 - ca 220) respectfully calls Hermes 'magister omnium physicorum'. Jamblichus (ca 275 - ca 330) describes in De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum a type of philosophy as 'the way of Hermes' and notes that the Egyptian philosopher was reputed to have been the author of a great many books.

The Christian theosopher Karl von Eckartshausen was an eminent and influential exponent of early German romanticism. His work in natural philosophy and Christian theosophy was read and discussed by some of the most well-known European writers and poets of his time. In Germany Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Johann Gottfried Herder (who regarded him as the prophet of ‘Harmonie im Sittlichen und in der Natur’ – harmony in morality and in nature) and especially also Novalis knew his work. In Russia, where his works appeared in translation, he was mentioned in the novels of Nikolai Gogol (Dead Souls) and Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace). Tsar Alexander I was an avid reader of his work. In France, Eckartshausen influenced contemporary mystical thinkers and Böhmist theosophers such as Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin (‘le Philosophe Inconnu’) (1743-1803) and members of various Martinist circles.

Eckartshausen lived and worked in the south of Germany, straddling the cultural divide between the German Aufklärung (Enlightenment) and the early Romantic period. He defended his own kind of religious philosophy against the new rationalism and materialism of what he considered the wrong sort of Enlightenment. Strongly involved in the social and legal developments in his society, he foresaw and warned against the political and religious unrest in the era of the French Revolution (1789-1801). He joined Adam Weishaupt’s masonic order of the Illuminaten (Illuminates) but withdrew his membership soon after discovering that this order only recognized enlightenment through human reason (‘Man cannot enlighten: the truth enlightens…’). His works have always confronted the turbulent political, social and religious reality of his times and thus caught the early romantic Zeitgeist. This holds true for his early legal studies, the didactic, political and polemic works (Über Religion, Freydenkerey und Aufklärung, 1785-86), the theatrical plays, the sentimental and romantic-theosophical narratives (Kostis Reise), and the later religious, theosophical and spiritual works from Aufschlüsse zur Magie onwards.

Antoine Faivre, who devoted his PhD thesis to Eckartshausen, has recognized a number of themes and motives in his work. First, Faivre distinguishes the principle of analogy or correspondence. This Hermetic principle allowed new insights attained by modern natural science to be interpreted as so many confirmations of long-existing theosophical intuitions. Another motive appearing in the major texts by both Ivan Lopuchin and Eckartshausen is the concept of the Inner Church.

http://www.ritmanlibrary.nl/c/p/h/bel_16.html