The Scarab from the North

IN THE PAST I have been accused of worshiping Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers. Although I do respect the man’s work with the modern hermetic revival my greatest “hero” is actually the great Polish Adept and alchemist Michael Sendivogius (1566–1636) who was referred to as Heliocantharus Borealis (“scarab from the north” or “the worshiper of the northern sun”). He was well aquainted with John Dee and Edward Kelley, as well as a favorite in the courts of the Bohemian Emperor Rudolf II and the Polish (and Swedish) King Sigismund III Vasa. He is also one of the few proto-modern Adepts who reputedly succeded with the Great Work of producing the Philosopher’s Stone, which is on record at the beforementioned courts in Prauge and Cracow. With an Polish ancestry and being a permanent resident of Sweden I feel a strong spiritual sympathy with this cosmopolitan “Scarab from the North”. 

On my Gyllene Gryningen Blog I have written about Sendivogius before, in my quite popular essay The Rosicrucian Kingdom of Poland. But here I would like to address a point in that great Polish Adept’s writing which bears quite some significance on the current state of the Order in Scandinavia or Hyperborea. Let me quote from Sendivogius’ preface to his Tractatus de Sulphure Altero Naturae Principio (“A Treatise on Sulphur and Other Natural Principles”) from 1613: 

The times are at hand when many secrets of Nature will be revealed to men. The Fourth or Northern Monarchy is about to be established; a happy age is coming; enlightenment, the Mother of Sciences, will soon appear; a brighter Sun than in any of the preceding three Monarchies will rise and reveal more hidden secrets. This Monarchy (as the ancients foretold) God’s Omnipotence will found by the hand of a prince enriched with all virtues who, it is said, has already appeared in this present age. In this our northern region we see a prince of uncommon wisdom and valour, whom no king can surpass in victories or in love of men and God.

There is no doubt that in this Monarchy God will reveal to us more secrets of Nature than it took place in the pagan darkness or under the rule of tyrants. Philosophers used to describe these Monarchies not according to their powers but by their placement and the parts of the world they cover. On the first place they place the Eastern, then the Southern, then the Western and finally the Northern and last one which is expected in these countries and about which I will speak at length in my Harmonia.

In this Northern coming polar Monarchy (as the Psalmist says) mercy and truth will meet together, peace and justice will kiss each other, truth will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from heaven. There will be one Shepherd and one fold, and knowledge will be the common property of all without envy. I look forward to all this with longing. (Translated by A.E. Waite.) 

Now, this sentence bears a direct reference to the first Rosicrucian Manifesto published one year later, in 1614, entitled Fama Fraternitatis, which states that 

In Politia we acknowledge the Roman Empire and Quartam Monarchiam [“Fourth Monarchy”] for our Christian head. 

The reference to “a brighter sun” that will rise in Sendivogius’ preface is clearly and actually a reference to the statement in the Fama of the appearance of an “Aurora, or some clearness, or divine light in the sky”. Let me quote that important paragraph from the Fama in full for greater elicudation:

Howbeit we know after a time there will now be a general reformation, both of divine and humane things, according to our desire, and the expectation of others: for it is fitting, that before the rising of the Sun, there should appear and break forth AURORA, or some clearness, or divine light in the sky; and so in the mean time some few, which shall give their names, may joyn together, thereby to increase the number and respect of our Fraternity, and make a happy and wished for beginning of our Philosophical Canons, prescribed to us by our brother R.C. and be partakers with us of our treasures (which never can fail or be wasted) in all humility, and love to be eased of this worlds labor, and not walk so blindly in the knowledge of the wonderful works of God.

Thus, what we see here in both Sendivogius’ words and that of the Fama Fraternitatis, which were published simultaneously, is a reference to a Nascent Aurora of the North. This Aurora mentioned in the Fama is clearly the Aurora Borealis (“Northern Light”), announcing the advent of the Forth Monarchy as foretold by Heliocantharus Borealis. In the Hermetic Order of the Nascent Aurora (H∴O∴N∴A∴) we have set as our mission to manifest a Novo Aurora Nascente in Hyperborea which from a spiritual point of view sets out to epitomise what that great Polish Adept and our Rosicrucian predeccessors prophesised exactly four Centuries ago, starting with the Vernal Equinox of 2014.

S∴R ∴