Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry

146."A few words may be summarized from the same writer about some of the other Mystic bodies in Bohemia and Hungary, lands full of Occult tendencies. Among them are the following: 'Die Bruder von Reif und Hammer, ' or the ' Brothers of the Circle and ^[94] Hammer,' or 'Die Hackebrudershaft,' or 'The Brotherhood of the Hatchet,' 'Die Freunde vom Kreuz,' or the 'Friends of the Cross.' This last society spread into the Netherlands, and had its greatest success in the latter part of the 17th Century. The 'Brothers of the Cross' were still holding their meetings in 1785; they had many members in Wallachia, and still more in Transylvania. Brabbee, in his Masonic studies, says: 'It consisted principally of Older men and those who were generally reputed wise, and therefore of the prominent leaders of the Brotherhood, who, in the Metropolis of the Kingdom, formed a kind of stronghold on the “Inner East.”' ”

147."The last expression (in italics) is worthy of our notice, for it shows how the minds of men were turning, even in Masonic Circles, to the Eastern teachings. Abafi also says that a great and moulding force was exercised at this period on the form of Freemasonry by Jan Amos Kemensky (latinized Comenius), who was born at Brunn, in Bohemia, in 1592, and who became a chaplain of the Bohemian Brothers in 1618. When the civil wars began Komensky lost wife, child, and property, and was exiled from Austria like all other non-Catholics. He escaped to Poland, turned his thoughts to educational matters, and became famous in Sweden, Hungary, and England.

148."Komensky was actively interested in the Rosicrucian movement, and joined John Valentinus Andreas, the reformer of the Rosicrucian Fraternity,* ^[95] in his work in that body. In 1650 Komensky was invited to Hungary and Transylvania by the Prince Ragozcy, where he stayed four years. It is doubtless partly owing to his influence that the Rosicrucian movement spread so widely in these countries. His philosophical and metaphysical views were so widely spread, that when Anderson wrote his book on Freemasonry, he, according to Abafi, incorporated in his work a compilation of the most essential portions of the plans of Komensky."

149.Says Abafi: "It was reserved for an Austrian, a Moravian school-master, the Chaplain of the Bohemian Brothers, to bestow ethical treasures upon a brotherhood in proud Albion, the home of the boldest intellects; to formulate the ideas, and to point out the way for a league which — after its transformation — was destined to embrace the noblest of all nations, and being brought to perfection by them, ordained to influence the whole of humanity.

149½."The spread of Mysticism in Austria and Hungary during the last century was astoundingly rapid; according to von Andree, about five per cent. of the entire population belonged to the Freemasons, Rosicrucians, and other allied societies."

150."In a German tract, printed about 1803, and bound up with another tract called 'Geschichte der Freimaurerei,' occur the following statements, which the true Masonic student will find very valuable and which show, as does all literature of any value, that the Rosicrucians were the real heads of all Masonic bodies.

^[96] 1. "The Templars worked with the so-called ' Magical Brethren' at an early period of their existence.

2."A Rosicrucian manuscript states that at Cologne, with the motto, 'non Omnis Moriar' this Magical Union was created there in 1115.

3."A manuscript of Michael Mayer's still exists in the University Library at Leyden, which sets forth that in 1570 the society of the old Magical Brethren, or 'Wise Men,' was revived under the name of Brethren of the Golden Rosy Cross.

4."It is asserted that in 1563 the Statutes of the Brotherhood were, on the 22d of September, at Basle, at a meeting of seventy-two Masters of Lodges, revised, set forth, and printed; that the Lodges of Swabia, Hesse, Bavaria, Franconia, Saxony, Thuringia, and those on the Moselle acknowledged the headship of the Grand Lodge of Strassburg. That in the eighteenth century Lodges of Dresden and Nuremberg were fined by the Grand Master of Strasburg, and that the Grand Lodge of Vienna, or Hungary, and Stirrmark, the Grand Lodge of Zurich, which ruled the Swiss Lodges, referred to the Mother Lodge of Strass-burg in all difficult and doubtful matters. "