Astronomical Images in the Vaticinia Michaelis Nostradami

August 12th, 2009

Astronomical Images in the Vaticinia Michaelis Nostradami de Futuri Christi Vicarii ad Cesarem Filium D. I. A. Interprete: A 13th Century Look at the Galactic Centre and its Role in the Timing of the Apocalypse

© 2009 by Vincent Bridges

Presented at the 44th International Medieval Conference,
May 7th, 2009, Kallamazoo Michigan, for the Societas Alchimica

The Vaticinia Michaelis Nostradami de Futuri Christi Vicarii ad Cesarem Filium D. I. A. Interprete (The Prophecies of Michel Nostradamus on the Future Vicars of Christ to Cesar his son, as expounded by Lord Abbot Joachim) is a collection of eighty watercolor images compiled as an illustrated codex and a version of the well-known Vaticinia de Summis Pontificibus of the 13th-14th century. In this version, and unique to it, is a series of seven images that allow us to glimpse the time period in which the heretical Joachimites believed the Apocalypse would occur. These seven images contain the earliest known representation of the center of our galaxy, and its location between Scorpio and Sagittarius. As Fulcanelli described in the Hendaye chapter of Le Mystere, this is a clue to the timing of the “season of catastrophe,” and the secret of the alchemical transformation of time.

In 1994, an article by Italian journalist Enza Massa in the “Giornale dei Misteri” caught the attention of Ottavio Cesare Ramotti, a former Italian state policeman and encryption expert. The article concerned the rediscovery of a manuscript in the Italian National Library in Rome. Originally uncovered in the 1930s by Vatican University professor Ernesto Buonamico, who used some of the images in an attempt to find a role for Mussolini in Nostradamus’ predictions, the folio had an uncertain origin. Claiming to have been in the Vatican Library, it was sold to the National Library in 1888 by a mysterious and somewhat unscrupulous bookseller. The manuscript languished in obscurity until 1982, after the attack against pope John Paul II, when three journalists from “Giornale dei Misteri” began to study the manuscript and 12 years later one of them, Enza Massa, wrote the article that Ramotti read.

Ramotti was already a Nostradamus “scholar” at that point, having figured out a method of decrypting the quatrains into, of all things, modern Italian. When he began to look deeper into the manuscript itself, he found more and more points of similarity between the images and his interpretations of the quatrains. He explained these connections in his 1998 book, translated into English as The Nostradamus Code. In his zeal to prove that the images were somehow connected to Nostradamus, and therefore prove his new interpretation, Ramotti completely lost sight of the original manuscript.

The manuscript is small, only 83 pages in total. Eighty pages contain illustrations of an obviously allegorical nature; two pages contain notes linking some of the images to figures in the Papacy, from Urban VIII to Alexander VIII. One page was obviously meant to serve as an introduction, but it survived heavily damaged.

This introductory page reads:

To the honest reader,

From the prophetic mosaic of the Roman pontiffs (from Urban VII) (and) those preceding him are missing here by reason of the injuries of devouring time, according to divine will, which is uttered not by possession but in sleep, and not by divine inspiration in the most eminent Abbot Joachim I, but by other ways, for our forebears have sent us a soothsayer of good and scarce possession.

Cino gave this in gift to the most eminent Cardinal Barberini who has beseeched it with the permission of the most reverent Abbot.

The prophecies seen by the venerable Joachim … from Sir Ce … (mus) that which … Abbot foresaw.

Brother Cinus Beroaldus of the Carthusian Librarians at Corati, 6 September 1629

The two pages of notes bear the following heading: Visions of Michele Nostradamus on the future Vicars of Christ to his son, Cesare. This note is signed D.I.A. Interprete, which is likely Dominus Ioachim Abatis. (See appended notes for a translation of this section.)

Also, and most curious, the last page of the illustrations contains a note as well. It reads:

“Apocalyptic predictions by Anito Efesio, prince of painters of his epoch, later clarified by the prophetic inspiration of Abbot Ioachim, Tommaso Guidini of Saint John’s, by approval of the most pious Carthusian Fathers, copied and restored it in the year of our lord 1343 from the corruption of time and corrosion inflicted by the conflicts of this place.”

No Nostradamus there, and a date of 1343 points to a longer history indeed.

Ramotti does make the suggestion that the images are part of Nostradamus’ inspiration, perhaps even one of those ancient books that he supposedly burned after writing his prophecies, but actually passed on to his son, Cesare. This seems at first a likely answer, but it leads to even more significant questions. In his book, Ramotti follows the commentary of the Abbot Joachim, and mixes in the prophecies of St. Malachy, a 12th century Irish mystic, whose enigmatic references to future Popes were discovered and published in the 1590s. While not conclusively, some of the imagery in the illustrations does suggest the mottoes of St. Malachy. Abbot Joachim, who wrote the two pages of interpretation, seemed to think so. However the author of the 1343 note refers only to Joachim of Flores, and not St Malachy.

Can we authenticate the basic manuscript as having been created in the 14th century? Actually we can, and fairly easily. The manuscript, handwriting and ink experts consulted in the History Channel’s special “The Lost Book” agreed that the notes on St. Malachy dated from the 1690s, the introductory note mentioning, possibly, Cesare de Nostradame dates from no early than 1590, and the other 80 or so pages are consistent with an origin point in the mid 1300’s, as stated in the note actually written on the last page of illustrations. All we need to put the “Lost Book of Nostradamus” into its proper context is to find other collections of manuscripts with the same or similar images.

The origin of the work is clearly the 13-14th century Vaticinia de Summis Pontificibus, Visions of a Summation of the Papacy, a Latin text that collects portraits of popes and prophecies related to them, which circulated from the late thirteenth to the early fourteenth century in a broad range from Provence to Bohemia, following has been described as the Cathar refuge trail. Originally a series of some thirty prophecies, based on Greek prototypes, known as the Genus nequam prophecies, derived from the Byzantine Leo Oracles, a series of twelfth-century Byzantine prophecies that foretell a savior-emperor destined to restore unity to the empire. Their poems and tempera illuminations mix fantasy, the occult, and pseudo-history in a chronology of the popes. Each prophecy consists of four elements, an enigmatic allegorical text, an emblematic picture, a motto, and an attribution to a pope. The series was augmented in the fourteenth century with further prophecies, written in imitative continuation of the earlier set, but with more overtly propagandist aims. By the time of the Council of Constance (1414–1418), both series were united as the Vaticinia de summis pontificibus and misattributed to the Calabrian mystic Joachim of Flores, actually a pseudo-Joachim. There are close to fifty manuscript versions of this collection.

Most of these collections contain images that are almost the same as those in the Vaticinia Michaelis Nostradami some even in a similar sequence. One these collections, Marston MS 225, in the manuscript and rare-book library of Yale University, comes from the German areas of Bavaria and Bohemia, probably from within the courts of Emperors Frederick III and Maximilian I, having had an impact on the various sovereigns of the Holy Roman Empire, down to Charles IV and Rudolph II. (See appended note for a list of manuscript collections with similar images.)

The oldest of these folios, Carpentras Bm Ms 0340, dates from circa 1280, just a few years after the crusade against the Cathars in Southern France. The town of Carpentras was a center of Catharist activity, and because of its inclusion within the new Papal enclave of Avignon, it remained such until the late 14th century. The Carpentras version contains most of the same images as the “Lost Book” and most of the Vaticinia material, including some fairly standard apocalyptic images. Another manuscript, Lyon Bm Ms 0189, from just a little further up the Rhone River, has the same core images as the “Lost Book” and the others, but it contains some strikingly apocalyptic images. These images, however, are fairly direct representations of Revelation’s apocalypse without much in the way of occult or arcane symbolism.

In the British Museum Rare Book Collection, there is another rather splendid version of the Vaticinia Summis Pontificibus, Harley 1340 British Library. This collection also has the same core images, all extremely heretical, as the “Lost Book” and it dates from the late 1400’s in Imperial Bohemia. Like the version in the Yale Library, this collection can be said to have had an influence on, or been influenced by, the Catharist survivals in Bavaria and Bohemia. This collection in fact is close to in time or contemporaneous with John Huss, the early Czech “protestant” against the Church of Rome.

There are also the repeated images that reference the famous 12th century mystic Joachim of Flores. The Church condemned his Trinitarian view of time in 1215, but it managed to survive in an underground form until the Renaissance. Exactly how Joachim and St. Malachy overlap, and when, points to a solution to the problems presented by the manuscript’s purported origins.

Thirty years after Nostradamus’ death, in the late 1590s, and about the time Cesare was working on his history of Provence, Dom Arnold Wion discovered and published the enigmatic mottoes of future Popes attributed to St. Malachy. They had been circulating privately for perhaps as much as a decade before Wion made them public. Also, the Trinitarianism of Joachim of Flores was making a come back as part of the new Hermetic movement, which included Giordano Bruno and Dr. John Dee.

Politically, the royal line of France was failing, and King Henry of Navarre, a protestant picked by Nostradamus at age 12 as a future king of France, became Henry IV of France in 1589. Even though he became Catholic to ascend the throne, his supporters saw this as a move toward moderation and even a loosening of the Church’s stranglehold. The emergence of prophecies implying the eventual end of the Catholic Church was an appealing part of this movement.

This suggests that possibly Cesare held onto this part of his father legacy, and then used it to gain favor with the Church at the start of the Counter-Reformation. The future Pope Urban VIII might have found such a document to be intriguing enough to give it to the Abbot Joachim, who seems to have been a scholar of St. Malachy’s mottoes. Perhaps he was looking for clues to his own elevation.

The time line is the key. It is just possible that this manuscript was in Nostradamus’ possession, and that he gave it to his son Cesare, who in turn gave it to Cardinal Barberini for the reasons speculated on above. The possible mention of Cesare Nostradamus from 1629 is damaged and very obscure. The only clear mention of Nostradamus, in the heading of the two pages of St Malachy commentary, can be dated no earlier than 1690, as Pope Alexander VIII is mentioned. By then Nostradamus’ fame had grown to be as great as the ancient seers, and so the last Abbot Joachim used him as reference to confirm the mottoes of St Malachy. The original visions of Joachim of Flores have now long disappeared from the interpretation and the new, and Church approved, visions of St Malachy have replaced them. And they are attributed, strangely enough, to Nostradamus as if that made them somehow more relevant.

What is clear from all this is that whether or not Cesare Nostradamus ever owned it, the manuscript is proof of a very heretical and apocalyptic movement or society that survived at least until Nostradamus’ era. Since the manuscript was in fact produced sometime around the mid 14th century, as the note on the last page says, and that it sums up the apocalyptic tradition of both Joachim of Flores and an obscure group of apocalyptic visionaries with Catharist leanings, then it is likely that if this particular version of the Vaticinia originated in Provence (as seems probable from its similarities to both the Carpentras and Lyon versions) then it passed through the hands of Rene D’Anjou, who was a collector of apocalyptic manuscripts and obscure artists. He also stands at that peculiar junction point in both time and space, Provence in the mid 1400s, where the last gasps of the Cathar heresy could become the tarot cards, the Holy Grail could be openly searched for, and Kings could still found orders of chivalry with esoteric preoccupations. In his last years, one of his physicians was Nostradamus’ maternal grandfather, Jean de St. Remy.

And it is just possible that his first teacher and father figure, his maternal grandfather Jean, did pass on to his bright young pupil an ancient volume of mysterious images of heresy and apocalypse that he had received for his service to Good King Rene. And if so, then it is easy to see why Michael de Nostradame chose not to burn it along with his other books and magical papers, but to pass it along to his son, Cesare.

We will perhaps never really know if this is true. The connections are not solidly historical. There is a letter by Cèsare, written to the French scientist Fabri de Peiresc, in which mention is made of several miniatures painted by Cèsar, and of a booklet that was destined as a gift to King Louis XIII in 1629, however there is no evidence whatsoever of any connection between these and the Vaticinia. The connections to St Malachy appear to be stronger, but, given the dates, the manuscript could have influenced Wion in his “reconstruction” of St Malachy’s mottoes. The influence of Joachim of Flores is just as obvious as St Malachy, but even that could be a misreading.

Looking just at the images themselves, without the struggle to shape them into a prophetic pattern, an outline begins to emerge. Many of the recurring images, Popes as or riding on dragons, burning towers or furnaces and wheels of fortune, viticulture and the slaughter of the innocents, the Three Fates and so on, are clearly heretical and/or alchemical in intent. Others, and these are unique to the Vaticinia Michaelis Nostradami, appear to have a direct astrological or astronomical meaning. Something is being communicated, but just what is very obscure indeed. If they are the remnants of an almost lost apocalyptic tradition, as seems most likely, then the need is even greater to interpret them on their own terms, and within their historical framework.

When we do that, we arrive back in Provence and the lower Rhone River a generation or so after the end of the crusade against the Cathars. They would clearly have resonated to the Pope as the Beast of Revelation, images of destruction and genocide and slaughter, as well as demons controlling King and Church. However, the component of the Vaticinia Michaelis Nostradami that makes it truly unique are the series of seven images found in no other version of the Vaticinia.

In the first of these seven images, a seven-rayed sun rises in Leo, above a Lion and a seven-spoke wheel hangs in the sky below a blank banner. The blank banner is a recurring motif in this series of images. The other versions of the Vaticinia have some degree of commentary, while this complete collection has none. From this we might suppose that phrases or sentences were meant to appear on the banners. The next image also has a few blank banners, but here a man sits a book on the Tree of Life, with an eight-spoke wheel above and an archer and two fish, probably meant to represent Sagittarius and Pisces, below.

The next image continues the eight-spoked wheel motif, but the Tree of Life is being attacked by a club-like thing, and arm hold an upright sword, around which another banner entwine while below yet another banner are a scorpion and a ram, again perhaps Scorpio and Aries. Next, the wheel motif continues, except here a crescent moon hangs below it. Beneath that an archer with a blindfold and a mythological woman struggle over a bow and arrow, amidst even more blank banners and a bull and a pair of scales, Taurus and Libra. These first four images then give us seven zodiacal signs: Taurus, Libra, Leo, Scorpio, Aries, Pisces and Sagittarius.

Note that Taurus and Aries share a cusp, as do Sagittarius and Scorpio and Libra and Pisces are opposite each other. Also, Libra and Scorpio have a cusp, as do Pisces and Aries. The traditional spring and fall equinox falls on the cusp of Aries/Pisces and Libra/Virgo. The pattern then points to the equinox moving a whole sign backward, from Pisces/Aries to Aquarius/Pisces and Libra/Virgo to Virgo/Leo. The sun in Leo then is clearly the fall equinox on Leo/Virgo. This gives a rough date for this sequence of events, and that date is now, as the fall equinox began its move into Leo in 1999.

The next image pinpoints the date. From the wheel hangs, like a medallion, a V with three crescents, and suspended from it is what looks an eclipse. In August of 1999, most of Europe experienced a total eclipse, and a lunar eclipse both before and after the solar eclipse. Counting the one in February, there were three lunar eclipses that year. Below the medallion like eclipse image, is what looks like a badly drawn scorpion with an arc and a spiral between its claws. 1999 was also the year when the solar system aligned with and crossed the galactic meridian. Could the arc and spiral represent the center of our galaxy? The simple answer seems to be yes.

The last two images continue and complete the eight-spoke wheel motif; in the last of the series, the wheel is shattered. In the next to last, it remains intact, as a veil is lowered – apocalypsis in Greek means simply that, lowering the veil. A man is studying under a mystic symbol, and below him are three women, divided by another set of blank banners. The last image shows the wheel as shattered, a wild man raving, holding a blank book, and below that, two women and a stag deer. The immediate future, from this viewpoint, doesn’t look that promising.

However, the symbolism itself points to the Great Cross at Hendaye, which uses the same basic symbols and temporal markers to locate the same era, roughly the twenty years from 1992 to 2012, as the traditional date of the apocalypse. (See The Mysteries of the Great Cross at Hendaye: Alchemy and the End of Time, Weidner and Bridges, Inner Traditions 2003 for more detailed information on the Cross.) This somewhat amazing overlap of concepts, between an alchemist of the 20th century writing about a monument created in the 17th century that actually seems to encode the information of a small group of heretical Cathar from Provence, on the other side of France from Hendaye, would seem to be solid proof that some kind of heretical Catharist Chiliasm sect or society survived long enough to pass along the information.

And there is one further intriguing bit of evidence, in, of all places, the Voynich manuscript. This enigmatic text was once owned by Rudolph II, and perhaps was studied in reference to the other astro-alchemical texts of the day, including perhaps versions of the Vaticinia. The Voynich has one image in its collection of stars patterns and peculiar zodiacs that looks very much like a top down view of our galaxy. When compared to a computer-generated image, the similarities are stunning. The very idea of a galaxy wasn’t conceived of until the early 20th century, and even then, with powerful telescopes, no one could see the center of our own galaxy.

Yet the Chialists of Provence knew all about it in the 13th century. The next question to ask is how did they learn this amazing bit of information? Or perhaps that should be, from whom?

Other Vaticinia by Collection

Arundel 117 British Library

Beinecke Marston Ms 225

Bildindex 1

Bildindex 2

Bildindex 3

Bildindex 4

Bildindex 5

Carpentras Bm Ms 0340

Châlons En Champagne

Gnm Hs 86851

Harley 1340 British Library

Lyon Bm Ms 0189

Lyon Bm Ms 0195

NN Spencer 185

NN Spencer 212

NN Spencer 223

Pierpont Morgan Library Ms M 402

Stift Kremsmuenster

Tours Bm Ms 0520

Unknown & Misc.

Vaticinia Siue Prophetiae

Prophesies
Michael Nostradamus’ “On the Future Vicars of Christ to [his] son Cesar”

1st Prophecy
Let he who has ear[s] hear what the spirit says to [or ‘in’] the Churches, receive the book, and I consumed it, and it was like sweet honey in my mouth, and when I had consumed it my stomach became bitter, and lo a powerful lion, from whose mouth a long-lasting sweetness came forth, and a voice was heard in the city weeping over its citizens [literally ‘city men’], the sun was made dark, the stars were scattered, the Holy City will call it [it looks like someone wrote ‘called’ and then changed it to ‘will call’], and then death will come. Urban VIII Barbernius [i.e. his original name was ‘Maffeo Barberini’].
2nd Prophecy
At length the peacemaking dove will fly in the Vatican [or ‘on the Vatican hill’] __ed by a shrewder witch, when [or ‘as’] the eagle consumes, when [or ‘as’] the raven lives, when [or ‘as’] the solitary sparrow dies on the roof, peace will cry out on all sides, and [he/she/it, the dove?] will dedicate a temple to peace. Innocent X. Pamphilius Romanus [i.e. his original last name was ‘Pamphili’ and he came from Rome].
3rd Prophecy
The plant-bearing guard of the mountains will send down its roots in the Church of God, will de-feather the eagle, and more quickly [or ‘more rapaciously, more greedily’] than a she-wolf will the winged messenger of day be raised up over the wings of the hunter [the Latin looks like ‘ventoris,’ which is not a word. But ‘of the hunter’ is ‘venatoris.’ Perhaps a copying error has been made.]. Alex: VII. Chisius [?] Senensis [? It’s not clear to me what these last two adjectives are. Alexander VII’s last name was ‘Chigi’ and he came from Siena. Based on the endings of the other sections, I am guessing that ‘Chisius Senensis’ maps on to these facts.].
4th Prophecy
Turbot, and Toad, Toad, and Turbot [the Latin is ‘Rhombus’ and ‘Bufo’ for ‘turbot’ and ‘toad’ respectively. ‘Rhombus’ also means ‘a magician’s circle’ and ‘rhombus’.] will rule the Roman citadels. In his days the bloody muzzle will flow to the winged lions, and he himself will die from the pain more [or ‘rather’] un-praised. Clement IX. Rospigliosus Pistoriensis [his name was ‘Rospigliosi’ and he came from Pistoria, which apparently as a Latin adjective is ‘Pistoriensis’].
5th Prophecy
The new stars above the highest hills will rouse a certain fox, the seed will become haughty, in their councils my spirit will not enter. Clement X. Alterius Romanus [‘Alterius’ does not make good sense: it looks like it should literally = ‘another Roman’ (vis-à-vis Innocent II in section 2?), but that should be ‘Alter Romanus’ or ‘Alius Romanus’. His family was ‘Altierir’. Perhaps some confusion has occurred.]
6th Prophecy
The most cunning serpent under the appearance of the lion, will both drink six cups to the eagle, and spread the [or ‘his’] poison in [perhaps ‘through’] the whole world, he does not come to send peace, but the sword, he will stir up all the leaders [or ‘Princes, first men’] to war, he will conceal [or perhaps ‘overpower, check’] the moon, but during his days a beast, whose number is 666, will boast that he is the scourge of God. Innocent XI. Odescalius Comensis [His family was ‘Odescalchi’ and he came from Como].
7th Prophecy
Iron plants at the crossroads will be adorned over the winged horse, while the lion, and the eagle run, let us crown ourselves with roses, before they begin to droop, many run, but flowers have appeared in our land. Alexander VIII. Ottobonus Venetus [his family name was ‘Ottoboni’ and he came from Venice].
8th Prophecy
Light of terrible aspect to the one rising, a dragon [or ‘serpent’] a crown… [Presumably this section will have ended with the name of Innocent XII]

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Dee and Shakespeare

August 12th, 2009

Dee and Shakespeare:
The Origins of the Hermetic Revolution in the Elizabethan Theatre

© 2009 by Vincent Bridges and Teresa Burns

In 1921, The Occult Review, a British illustrated monthly journal, ran an insightful article entitled “Shakespeare and the Occult” that quite plausibly concluded that many of his plays were unintelligible without an understanding of the esoteric subjects they featured. Today, if you google the words Shakespeare plus Occult, you’ll find over half a million hits. Included are modern Rosicrucian claims that: “No one familiar with esoteric doctrines can have any question as to Shakespeare’s familiarity with the wisdom of the Illuminati.” You’ll also find Jewish community groups studying “Shakespeare, Kabbalah and the Occult.” Dozens of books explore similar connections. From this, we can be fairly safe in concluding that the consensus on Shakespeare’s knowledge of esoteric wisdom is almost unanimous, from scholars to the public.

But that agreement raises the vexing question of how did even a well-educated young provincial with a definite gift for language come by such a wealth of occult knowledge? This question opens the door to the issue of Shakespeare’s identity; and, while it doesn’t prove that the Bard was really someone else (Bacon, or de Vere or even Marlowe) it does suggest that Shakespeare had some kind of secret life, one that brought him into contact with a mentor who could provide him with sources from Holinshead to Aggripa. If we follow the trail of Shakespeare’s esoteric themes and their sources we come to the conclusion that only one library, one knowledgeable teacher, existed for the necessary range of subjects: that of Dr. John Dee.

John Dee was the Einstein of the era, a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and occultist, who collected the largest library in England and one of the best in Europe. Dee occupied that middle ground in the history of science where mathematics and magic had not yet split into widely different disciplines, and much of his life was devoted to alchemy, angelic communication and Hermetic philosophy. Beginning in the early 1580s, Dee, along with his “scyer” or clairvoyant Edward Kelley, conducted a years long series of communications with angelic intelligences. In 1583, Dee, Kelley and their families embarked on a kind of apocalyptic missionary journey in which they attempted to enlisted both Stephen I and Rudolph II, the rulers of Poland and The Holy Roman Empire. Dee returned to England in 1589, leaving Edward Kelley behind in Prague, and found his library ransacked and his reputation wrecked. Elizabeth I eventually made him Warden of Christ College, Manchester, where lived until a few before his death in 1609. Kelley apparently died in Prague sometimes during the mid 1590s while attempting to escape from one of Rudolph II’s prisons.

From the work of Joy Hancox, who concluded that Dee was the most likely channel for the sophisticated geometry of the original Elizabethan theatres, we can place Dee and Shakespeare roughly in the same milieu, that of the Burbages and the Globe Theatre. However, even though Dee was in London during Shakespeare’s meteoric rise to fame in the early 1590s, and kept many journals and diaries of visitors and events, there is no mention of the name Shakespeare. If Dee knew Shakespeare, then he knew him under another name and from very different circumstances.

Curiously, some kind of oral or family tradition connecting Edward Kelley and Shakespeare seems to have survived long enough for Elias Ashmole, in the mid 17th century, to pick up on it and in his 1652 anthology dedicate Edward Kelley’s poem “Concerning the Philosopher’s Stone” (Ashmole’s title as well) to Kelley’s “especiall good Friend, G.S. Gent.” Calling William Shakespeare “G.S.” would not be much of a stretch; especially since Shakespeare’s baptism records in Stratford-upon Avon, from April 26, 1564, list his name as “Gulielmus Shaksper.” But if Shakespeare was the “G. S.” of Ashmole’s dedication, how did he become the “especiall” friend of Edward Kelly?

The original title of the 1589 poem was simply: “The praise of vnity for frendship’s sake made by a stranger/ to further his frende his Conceyts.” Since the poem itself is an instructional piece, designed to give insight into a kind of alchemical theatre, then we suppose that the “conceyts,” or conceits in the sense of personal creative endeavors, involve both the theatre and alchemy. Clearly, Kelley is writing to someone who knows the secret, has perhaps actually witnessed the art of transmutation. And just as clearly, that someone is a poet, “nature’s sower,” and a member of the “schoole” mentioned in the poem’s last line.

In Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, the same collection that includes Kelley’s poem, we find an important clue. Ashmole’s commentary on Dee and Kelley’s continental adventures contains a description of Kelley’s transmutation, performed to “gratifie Master Edward Garland and his Brother Francis.” Garland is a name that appears in the same collection of Danish documents that contains the original of Kelley’s Philosopher’s Stone poem. And both brothers turn up in Dee’s diary; indeed Dee refers to several “Garland” brothers; Francis, Edward, and Robert; and a fourth “Garland,” Henry. None have ever been positively identified, even though they’re most frequently described acting as couriers. No archival records in England have ever been found that show a payment to or letter from any of these men; no civic record of any kind lists their names.

Given their roles as couriers, it is quite likely that “Garland” is a code word, and “brothers” meant in the sense of members of an exclusive organization, such as a fraternity or a secret society. So these Brothers of the Garland are lumped together by Dee in his diary as a generic way to refer to these agents, and possibly students. Edward Garland is perhaps the easiest to identify, because his name disappears quickly from Dee’s diary entries to be replaced in the same context with the name of a person we can trace, Edward Dyer.

Dyer was a member of a “schoole,” the “Areopagus” circle around Sir Philip Sidney – whose uncle, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, had been tutored in his youth by Dr. Dee – and as such was certainly known to Dee before he arrived. The transition from Edward Garland, in the early diary entries, to Edward Dyer just over a year later shows how Dee used the concept of the Brothers Garland. They were the couriers, spies and students who were part of a larger group, or school, of poets and playwrights.

Francis Garland continued to appear in Dee’s diaries, including six mentions along with Edward Dyer. In fact a group that included Francis Garland, Joan Kelley’s brother, Edward Dyer, and Dyer’s “man” Rowles left for England just ahead of Dee and his family. If Dyer, an informant for Lord Treasurer Burgley, was indeed one of the witnesses of Kelley’s transmutation, then Burghley’s insistence on getting the now-knighted Sir Edward Kelley away from Rudolph II’s court and back to England becomes clearer. Dyer had seen the trick worked, and had persuaded his superiors so convincingly that when Kelley wouldn’t return, Dyer was dispatched back to Prague to become his student.

But what of Francis Garland? Here’s a man who apparently doesn’t exist outside of his connections to the circle around Dee and Kelley, and mainly appears in Dee’s diary connected with Edward Dyer. As with his “brother” Edward, we can safely assume that his real name wasn’t “Francis Garland.” Could this person be the G. S. or “Gulielmus Shaksper” to whom Ashmole thought Kelley had dedicated his poem on the Philosopher’s Stone? Could Francis Garland, confidant of Dee and Kelley and a witness to an alchemical transmutation, actually be William Shakespeare?

The simple answer seems to be yes.

Comparing the dates when Dee notes Francis Garland in his diaries with the known dates of Shakespeare’s life shows clearly that the idea is impossible to disprove. Most of the dates for Francis Garland fall in what is known as the “Lost Years” of Shakespeare. We know that Shakespeare left Avon around 1585, probably soon the birth of the twins Hamnet and Judith, and we know nothing of what he was doing until the early 1590s when some of his plays were produced. The next firm date we have is April 18, 1593, when his poem Venus and Adonis was registered in London. Francis Garland appears in Dee’s diary from December 1586 through March of 1595, and in all that time we find not a single instance of Shakespeare being somewhere else when Francis Garland was visiting Dee.

In fact, if we assume that Garland is Shakespeare, it appears that he visited Dee before the registration and publication of both Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. Francis Garland visits Dee on March 17th 1593, and Venus and Adonis is registered on April 18th. Garland visits Dee on March 28th 1594, and The Rape of Lucrece is registered on May 19th. It is tempting to think that the young pupil, Garland/Shakespeare, was showing his mentor his latest works of alchemical poetry; Venus and Adonis in particular is filled with alchemical symbolism. By Garland’s last visit in 1595 it is possible that both Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream were finished and read with approval by Dee.

If we make the identification of Dee’s “Francis Garland” with the rising playwright William Shakespeare then most of the mysteries surrounding Shakespeare’s life disappear like actors at the end of a play. A sudden light is thrown on the so-called lost years, and a real person, not a cipher or a mask, emerges. The young Will didn’t waste his time holding horses in front of playhouses and apprentice as an actor; he went directly to the source of the national literary Renaissance; the Sidney group. And in that circle he met Dyer, who was perhaps in need of another bright young poet who could write quickly and cleanly. And so, off to Prague as Francis Garland…

Garland, or Shakespeare, was likely a member of Dee’s inner circle for close to nine years. In the later years, he was Dee’s main point of contact with Kelley, and he was, in light of Kelley’s poem, perhaps even closer to Kelley than Dee. During those years, full of adventure and marvels, we can easily see Shakespeare, or Garland, maturing and learning, absorbing everything, from politics and court protocol to intrigue and esoteric insights, that he would later turn to such good use in his plays.

And what of those plays? If we see Shakespeare as a poet who was also a spy and an occultist, then where did the theatre come from? Perhaps he was already interested in acting and playwriting when he met Dyer, and Dee and Kelley, or perhaps the idea came from Dee, who was known from his youth for being interested in the mechanics of stagecraft. Indeed, many of the standard theatrical devices of the Elizabethan stage, such as ending a show with a curtain drop, apparently have their origins in Dee and Kelley’s angelic workings. It is even likely that Dee designed the “sacred geometry” of the theatre space itself.

When Dee returned to England in December 1589, he found that much had changed. But he still had the Queen’s ear and lost no time in heading to Richmond and her court. Elizabeth would stay in touch, including a private visit to Mortlake in December 1590, where Dee apparently wanted permission, and money, for some unnamed venture. Two days later, a visitor, Richard Cavendish, confirmed her agreement with Dee’s venture in “philosophie and alchemie.”

Early versions of both Spenser’s Fairie Queen and Sidney’s Arcadia had been published since Dee’s return, and young playwrights such as Christopher Marlowe were inventing a new form of literature down in Shoreditch and on Bankside. Even Garland/Shakespeare was at work on a play, Henry VI part one. Perhaps part of Dee’s “philosphie” endeavor was the encouragement of the new theatrical art form, which was indeed allowed to flourish over the next few years until the plague closed the theatres. Dee’s role was of necessity behind the scenes, but Shakespeare/Garland took up front and center stage. By 1594, he was a member of The Lord Chamberlain’s Men and one of the most popular of the rising playwrights.

The rise of Shakespeare’s popularity in the mid-1590s represents a watershed for art, politics and occultism. In the best sense of turning the wheel, this was truly revolutionary. Suddenly, very deep and powerful ideas were turned loose in the public consciousness without the control and interference of the Church. The Elizabethan theatre was essentially a magical theatre, from the sacred geometry of the space in which they were presented to the subject matter and language of the plays themselves. And because of Dr. Dee’s influence, this was a Hermetic revolution.

This Hermetic revolution in the theatrical arts served as the starting point for further revolutions, both political and scientific. The Tempest, whose main character Prospero is thought by some scholars to be based on Dee, and by others on Shakespeare himself, , was performed for the marriage of Princess Elizabeth to Frederick V, the Elector Palatine of the Rhine in 1613. Frederick V would go on to become the King of Bohemia and the leader of the Protestant revolution in central Europe until he was deposed in 1622. This was also the years when the Rosicrucian manifestos were circulating, attracting minds such as that of Liebnitz and leading the way toward the Royal Societies in England and France.

Dee’s work, particularly his Monas Hieroglyphica from 1564, was a major influence on Rosicrucian philosophy, and there are echoes of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in The Alchemical Wedding of Christian Rosencrutz. Dee and Kelley’s alchemical work and the work of their followers can be seen as the origins of modern chemistry and physics. In the same way, Shakespeare’s plays are the origin point of modern psychology.

Once we begin to see Shakespeare in the light of his years as Francis Garland, and begin to appreciate the deep and long lasting influence of Dee on Shakespeare’s life and development, the outlines of a larger plan emerges. Dr. Dee had lost none of his missionary fervor, which had launched the long exodus to begin with, after his return in 1589. It was simply channeled in a different direction, toward perhaps the growing hermetic revolution in the Elizabethan theatre, spearheaded by his old pupil Garland, or William Shakespeare.

One last point: The 1623 collection of Shakespeare’s works opens with The Tempest. His friends who published it must have known his connection to John Dee and gave the pride of place to the play that makes the point most clearly. From Shakespeare’s point of view, the play can be seen both as a nod toward his old mentor, and as a salute and elegy to his own career as a magician and hermetic revolutionary. Dee could expect no less from a friend like Francis Garland.

***

Vincent Bridges is an author and esoteric historian best known as the co-author of Mysteries of the Great Cross at Hendaye: Alchemy and the End of Time and for his work on Nostradamus for the History Channel. Teresa Burns is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin at Platteville and is the author, along with Vincent Bridges, of Shakespeare, John Dee and the Hermetic Revolution: Alchemy and Espionage in the Magickal Theatre of Elizabethan England.

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Lost Book of Nostradamus

October 28th, 2007

nostradamus_gallery_007.jpg

Okay, so I’m watching Scary Movie 3 on Comedy Central last night when an odd commercial comes on featuring all kinds of signs saying: “The end is coming,” and “the end of the world.” This catches my interest and I un-mute just in time to hear my own voice saying something about the “exact date of the Apocalypse.” Then the logo for Lost Book of Nostradamus, my new History Channel special, comes on; it is a promo spot, done especially for the comedy channel.

This morning, while channel surfing over breakfast, I found a whole three-minute piece on Fox & Friends, featuring one of my segments from the show as a teaser and an interview with my friend Victor Baines, who is also on the show. Who would have ever thought that I would make Fox News announcing the end of the world? Reality is stranger than any fiction. Trust me, you couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried!

What started as a way to get the History Channel interested in making a follow up to my first Nostradamus special, Nostradamus: Five Hundred Years Later, has blossomed into a gargantuan enterprise, backed by the largest promotional blitz ever done by the History Channel. They even had an hour long Behind the Scenes on the TV Guide channel and a countdown clock on the History Channel itself. This show seems planned to take Nostradamus and the End of the World into the mainstream.

For the first hour, the show’s reenactments and forensic drama are mixed with a few nods to Nostradamus’ prophetic abilities, and lots of teasers that whatever the Lost Book turns out to be, it is going to be very important. The second hour moves deeper into the prophecies, and eventually concludes that the book wasn’t likely to have been created by Nostradamus, although it could have belonged to him. It could even have been one of his sources, one that helped him pinpoint our present time period as one to watch.

And here the show turns into the Vincent & Friends Apocalyptic Comedy Troupe, as Victor Baines and my former co-author Jay Weidner back me up as I interpret the crucial seven images in the series from the Lost Book as pointing to the events happening in the sky right now, culminating just five years from now in 2012. The connections between the imagery in the Lost Book and these celestial events are made even more apparent by the symbolism of a 13th century church front just a few feet away, around the corner, from Nostradamus’s door. I point all this out in the show, and the producers did a fine job of animating it, and it is quite convincing.

So, how did the core of our book, The Mysteries of the Great Cross at Hendaye: Alchemy and the End of Time (2003, Destiny Books) end up on television, with a huge media blitz behind it, in a special on Nostradamus?

That is actually a long and complicated story going back more than eight years to our first research trip for Mysteries. We stayed in the 18th century chateau built on the estate of Nostradamus’ brother Bertrand, and some sort of connection was made. The Balkan war insights came less than a month after we returned, and I got my start as an authority on Nostradamus. After the 2003 television show, where I actually did some of my talking head shots on the ground in France, my connection to the Maestro became even closer. But I had no idea what was coming next.

I had seen some of the images in the Lost Book in an earlier book by O. C. Ramotti, The Nostradamus Code. The images in that book were definitely intriguing, and the main reason to buy the book, but Ramotti’s interpretations left much to be desired. I find it far beyond belief that Nostradamus, when decoded, was actually writing in modern Italian. But still, those images were very strange!

Last spring, as the Lost Book was being examined forensically in Rome, I got to see for the first time the complete series of images and I knew very quickly that the core series not only depicted the center of our galaxy, but also was talking about the galactic alignment itself. Here was manuscript evidence, dating from at least the 16th century, that someone had known of the center of galaxy and even its spiral shape, long before modern astronomy discovered it in 1917.

That alone made the Lost Book of Nostradamus a truly unique discovery. Here was solid evidence that a main point of our argument in Mysteries, that an unknown group of initiates or believers had retained sophisticated knowledge concerning the “end of the world” galactic alignment at least since the Middle Ages, was in fact correct. A heretical and possibly chilaist group of initiates kept the knowledge, in the form of images that were eventually perhaps only semi-understandable. These images were treasures, copied and recopied, until finally they disappeared into the Vatican Library.

And now, I get to announce their true meaning and value on nation television!

I told you, you couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried!

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The Body of Light and the Alchemical Secret

February 1st, 2007

The Body of Light and the Alchemical Secret

By Vincent Bridges
(©2003, 2007)

I know, myself, that the goddess Isis is the mother of all things‚ and that she alone can bestow Revelation and Initiation.

Le Mystere des Cathedrales, page 136

1 – The Soul-Star Place

Just west of where the Nile begins to widen out into the fan-shaped delta, a rough limestone escarpment rises a few hundred feet and then flattens off into a wind swept plateau. An ancient civilization, perhaps a colony of lost Atlantis, built a complex pattern of structures on the edge of the plateau. Fulcanelli, in Dwellings of the Philosophers, suggests that they were built at the end of the last Ice Age, and Schwaller de Lubicz confirms that it is water erosion that can be seen on the Sphinx and its enclosure, giving us a date of at least 12,000 years ago for their construction. Whatever their age, these monuments have fascinated humanity throughout history.

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Nostradamus’ Quatrains and the next Balkan War

March 29th, 2006

Next Balkan War:

I/74

After tarrying they will move forward by rowing for Epirus.

The great relief effort will be toward Antioch:

The black curly-haired one will strain hard for the Empire,

Brazen Barb(arossa) will be roasted on a spit.

This is one of those quatrains just on the edge of becoming intelligible as events happen. It has had other close possibilitites through the years, the Barbary pirates, the Battle of Lepanto, even Hitler is suggested. But the attack toward Syria from the Balkans, the black curly haired leader under the double eagle of the Hapsburg, struggling for the Empire, sounds alot like Milosovic and his plans. Roasted on a spit suggests hoisted by a rocket, perhaps.

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Nostradamus’ Quatrains and Balkan Nuclear Terrorism

March 29th, 2006

V/90

In the Cyclades, in Perinthus and Larissa,

In Sparta, all of Peloponnesus:

A great famine — plague through false dust (fallout?).

Nine months it will last and through the whole peninsula.

Some sort of nuclear disaster is clearly foreseen, one that causes Europe to be evacuated or lifeless for nine months. Given this quatrain’s close association with V/91, which dates with precision the start of the current Kosovo Conflict, this event is a probable outcome likely to occur soon after, perhaps even within a matter of months.

VI/98

Ruin for the Volcae (of Languedoc) with fear so very terrible,

Their great city (Toulouse) stained, pestilential deed:

To plunder Sun, Moon and violate their temples:

And the two rivers to redden with gushing blood.

This quatrain is considered part of a treasure hunt theme woven around the idea of lost ancient gold of a people here called the Volcae. The Volcae are a legendary tribe of Celtic Freebooters said to have hidden their treasure near Toulouse. This quatrain could also relate to the disaster predicted for southern France as part of the Balkan terror campaign. (It may also be a retro-active prophecy flashing back to the mysterious destruction of Glanum in the late 3rd century.)

VII/6

Naples, Palermo and all of Sicily,

Will be uninhabited through barbarian hands,

Corsica, Salerno, the island of Sardinia,

Hunger, plague, war, the end of extended evils.

This quatrain, like II/96, is part of the so-called apocalyptic sequence. It points to the widespread destruction caused by nuclear terrorism in the Balkans. It suggests that is the end of the extended evils, or this is as bad as it possibly gets. On this we must agree with the prophet.

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Nostradamus’ Aquarian Age Quatrains

March 29th, 2006

PF/83 & 106

And at present, we are conducted by the Moon — by means of the total power of the eternal god — when she will have completed her entire cycle, the Sun, then Saturn will come. According to the celestial signs the reign of Saturn will return a second time so that as it is all calculated, the world then approaches its final death-dealing revolution.

According to the visible judgement of the stars, although we are in the seventh number of the millenary — which finishes all — we are approaching the eighth cycle which is in the firmament of the latitudinary dimension of the eighth sphere, whence the great eternal God will come to complete the revolution and the heavenly bodies will return to their motions and the superior movement will render the earth stable and secure for us. . . so that men coming after will see them, knowing the events to have occurred infallibly; such as those others we have noted, speaking more clearly – for although they were written under a cloud the meanings will be understood. When the time comes for the removal of ignorance, the situation will be cleared up still more.

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Nostradamus and the Balkan Conflict

March 29th, 2006

As I sit this Saturday morning watching to the news and pondering my week’s work on the prophecies of Nostradamus, I am left with the eerie sensation that 445 years ago the Seer of Provence watched the headlines unfold just as I am now watching his prophecies unfold. Never mind what the 16th century philosopher thought of the marvel of Television (”Good Heavens, what changes!” he exclaims in one quatrain), he would have understood the name and perhaps even the ubiquity of its images. The prophetic news from the past, Nostradamus’ quatrains, are deciphered by the images on the magic mirror of our television screens. As I watch this, I am struck with a strange sensation, not deja vu exactly, but more like a deja tu, a shared experience of a temporal moment outside of its space/time frame. Nostradamus in the past comments on his future is such a way as to explain my present.

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Implications of the Millennium Workings

March 29th, 2006

Connection to Enochian

Kicked off by Enochian Apocalypse Working in Sedona in September of 1996, which formed the etheric structure of a multidimensional geometry of intelligence. The Apocalypse working completed, perhaps for the first time since its transmission in the 16th century, the Enochian or Ophanic astral communication device. This structure included the basic forms necessary to harmonize the on-coming galactic alignments. Nick showed up for the working, and helped align it to galactic center. He was the first to make a major point of the Great Cross, but had the dates wrong. Many other major problems with Nick, but his presence is a factor in the mix. A little more than a year later, the Ophanic Intelligences announced that projecting the Tree of Life on the Celestial sphere on the equinox for the next ten equinoxes was the simplest way to align with the energy shift of the Great Cross. At the time they announced this, I was still unaware of how the Tree of Life related to our discoveries about Hendaye. It was indeed the OI angels that gave me the clue. From this realization came the idea of the Gnosis Gnomon and its connection with the labyrinth. That basic idea led to a complete unraveling of Hendaye’s message. Not just the moment of celestial alignment, but a hidden indication of the process itself.

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The Millennium Workings: Ophanic Impact Interface With Humanity

March 29th, 2006

PRELIMINARY NOTE FROM DR. STRANGE
Dear Friends,

Sometimes the spirit moves in strange ways, and you have to be quick to catch her, as one of my teachers once said. Last fall, I was instructed by the Ophanic angels, who had been quiescent since their invocation almost a year before, that I should offer to teach what I knew of the Ophanic system. I put the word out, by way of Dan Winter’s website, and received quite a few enquiries. I was told that I needed a certain number to reply by the fall equinox, and then more would continue to appear. That happened fine, and by early December, as I struggled with Dan’s book, my new book, starting a Geomancy college and preparing an Ophanic overview, I thought we were rolling.

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