Dr. Robert Fludd and the Kabbalah
Dr. Robert Fludd and the Kabbalah
Roland Matthews (2003)
Dr. Robert Fludd was one of the most interesting people of the English Renaissance. He was a physician and follower of Paracelsian medicine. This form of medicine, named after Paracelsus (1493-1541 CE), was also known as alchemy and used a mixture of Kabbalah and astrology for the prognosis, diagnosis and treatment of the patient. This paper will discuss Fludd’s use of Kabbalah in his medical technique and why he adhered to it, during the dawning of the modern age, while his contemporaries all but abandoned metaphysical thought.
Robert Fludd (1574-1637 CE), also known as Robertus de Fluctibus, was born at Milgate House, in the parish of Bearsted and the county of Kent. His father was Sir Thomas Fludd who served Queen Elizabeth as War Treasurer in the Netherlands and France. Little else is known of his early life.(1) He went to Oxford and St. John’s College where he received his BA in 1596 and his MA in 1598. Afterwards Fludd studied medicine, chemistry and occult sciences while traveling abroad in France, Germany, Spain, and Italy until 1604. According to his own account, as a means of support Fludd functioned as a tutor to various aristocratic families, such as the Guise, during his sojourn.(2) After his years on the continent he returned to Christ Church and received his MD in 1605. It was during those six years of study that he became involved in Paracelsian medical circles.
As a student at Oxford he rejected Aristotelian philosophy and embraced hermeticism while maintaining his faithful membership of the Anglican Church. Questions were raised about Fludd’s orthodoxy because of his involvement in occult sciences, and it was not until 1609 that he was admitted a Fellow of good standing, but he insisted on the religious dimension of his philosophy. Although the application of Paracelsian chemicals into medicine was receiving less opposition by the Fellows of the College, Fludd’s esoteric and mystical speculations were still under suspicion.(3) He then established his own practice and apothecary in London where he maintained his own laboratory to carry on his alchemical experiments and prepare his chemical remedies. England’s leading contributor to this field (natural magic), Robert Fludd, wrote nearly all his books in Latin and had them published abroad.(4) Besides the success of his practice, he also had several notable patrons. Neoplatonists were rare among the English clergy, despite Robert Fludd’s claim to have the patronage of three bishops.(5) Richard Swayne, a Dorset vicar, and William Oughtred (1575-1660 CE), the mathematician were patrons of Fludd.(6)
Fludd was living in a volatile time in history. It was the end of the Renaissance and the beginning of the modern era. Cherry Gilchrist says in her book the elements of alchemy: “From the fifteenth century onwards a general movement arose in European circles of learning and nobility that attempted to draw together all the strands of artistic, scientific and occult disciplines, and to weave them into one universal system of knowledge.”(7) Keith Thomas in his Religion and the Decline of Magic says “The most elaborate English hermeticist was Robert Fludd whose misfortune was to have been born at a time when the intellectual presupposition of the system had already come under attack.”(8) The system that they are referring to is the Kabbalah. (There are several ways to spell this word and any differences are due to the preference of the writers referenced. Often spelled with a K by mystics of no particular faith, spelled with a C is associated with Christian or Gnostic esotericism, and traditionally spelled with a Q by those of the Hebrew faith.)
The Kabbalah is the ancient practice of Hebrew mysticism. Kabbalah is divided into three categories, theoretical, meditative, and magical. The theoretical is largely based on the Zohar and is concerned with the dynamics of the spiritual domain, especially the sephiroth and the angels. The meditative category deals with the use of divine names and letter permutations, such as gematria and notariqon. The magical part consists of signs, amulets, talismans, and incantations used to influence or alter natural events.(9)
There are two main texts used for the study of this system. The Sefer Yetzirah (the book of creation) is the oldest, being directly quoted in the sixth century CE, and references to it appear in the first century CE.(10) The Sefer ha-Zohar (the book of splendor) was written in thirteenth century Spain and after 1500 CE its influence was unparalleled, extending far beyond Jewish circles.(11) Gematria is Hebrew numerology. The twenty two letter alphabet, consisting of three mother letters, seven double letters, and twelve guttural letters, all have their own numerical values. The theory is that words or phrases adding to the same number are somehow related. For example: the words for Mother, World, the greater, and God, all have the Hebrew numerical value of 42.(12) Notariqon is the practice of taking acronyms for phrases and vice versa, such as the alchemical phrase Visita interiora terrae recificando invenies occultum lapidem, (Visit the interior of the earth; by rectification, you shall find the hidden stone) or Vitriol for short.(13) The three mother letters refer to the elements fire, air, and water. The seven double letters refer to the planets, and the twelve guttural letters refer to the signs of the zodiac. All twenty-two are related to the twenty-two cards of the major arcana in the Tarot. These twenty-two cards are used as the paths between the ten sephiroth, or spheres, on the tree of life to make a total of thirty-two paths of wisdom.
The Kabbalah divides the universe into four dimensions, Atzliluth, Briah, Yetzirah, and Assiah. These four worlds are related to the four letters of the Tetragrammaton, the unspeakable divine name of God. The first letter Yod relates to the archetypal dimension of Atzliluth. The second letter Heh relates to Briah which is the home of the Archangels. The third letter Vau relates to Yetzirah, the world of creation, and the final Heh is Assiah or the material world.(14) In some schools of thought, each of these worlds contains its own tree of life model that is connected to the one below it. This cosmology which includes colors, harmonics, geometry, numerology, and astrology is far too complex to be examined in detail by this paper, but is mentioned briefly so the reader may understand what Fludd had used as the foundation of his work.
Roob says “Fludd combined the diagrams of the Middle Ages, as handed down by the well-known encyclopedic works of Isidore of Seville (560-633 CE) with the complex symbolism of the Cabala.”(15) Fludd defended the geocentric concept against the new theory of Copernicus (1473-1543 CE), which he considered illogical on the grounds that it would be easier for the prime mover to rotate the wheel of the spheres from the rim than for a sun to do it from the center.(16) The Kabbalah has its roots in the philosophical theory of the duality of nature and the idea that light is life and that it emanates from God. For Fludd the Sun is the heart of the macrocosm. It is at the precise point of intersection of the two pyramids of light and darkness, in the spheres of equilibrium of form and matter.(17) Alexander Roob in his book Alchemy and Mysticism says that in the visions of Fludd and Boehme (1575-1624 CE), influenced by the Cabala, God consists of the two forces of light and darkness. From his dark side emerge the demonic powers which bring illness. Human beings can only be saved and remain healthy by praying to God.(18) He goes on to point out the two dualistic principles are equated with the upper and lower waters familiar from the Cabala and the works of Fludd. According to the Zohar, these correspond to the two Hehs in the Tetragrammaton.(19) Roob also quotes Fludd saying “In the firmament the sun is the visible representative of the divine fire and of love. Its corresponding part in the human body is the heart, which emits its vital rays (the veins) in a circle from the center, and thus animates each individual limb. (Fludd’s Philosophical Key c. 1619)”(20) According to Fludd, as was already mentioned, the heart is the Sun of the microcosm, the source of life. When his friend William Harvey (1578-1657 CE) discovered the circulation of the blood in 1615, his views were reinforced.(21)
In the Kabbalah the tree of life is also revealed in the body. This is why a physician such as Fludd found it useful. The eye is a very important symbol in the Kabbalah for many reasons. Light, optics, proportion, and harmonics are exemplified in this amazing organ. From the cabalistic book the Zohar Fludd described the human eye: the white is the ocean, the iris the land, the pupil is Jerusalem, but the fourth part was Zion, the vision of the whole eye itself, the midpoint of everything and visible within it is the view of the whole world. (Utriusque Cosmi, Vol. II Oppenheim 1619)(22)
For the Paracelsian Robert Fludd, the divine act of creation was an alchemical process in which God, as a spagyrist, divided primal chaos into three divine primary elements of light, darkness, and spiritual waters. These waters in turn were the roots of the four Aristotelian elements.(23) This process is exhibited in the Pythagorean Tetractys. From the great Tetragrammaton flow the ten epithets of God. These embody various aspects of the godhead, which in turn correspond to the ten primal numbers, the Sephiroth.(24) Fludd compared the four spiritual levels of man with the Tetragrammaton. Yod is compared to the higher self or spirit. The first heh is the intellect, the vav is the soul or emotions, and the second heh is the sensual or elemental sphere of the body.(25)
Like Fludd, Kircher (c.1601-1680 CE) divided the various zones of heaven and earth into octaves.(26) According to Pythagoras (c.580-500 BCE), the structure of the world is based on the consonant intervals of the octave, the fifth and the fourth. Progress from oneness to the number four and the ten emerges, the mother of all things.(27) Fludd said in his Philosophia Sacra (Frankfurt 1626) “Within this formula lies the entire act of creation, from the splitting of the primal element into sexual duality, its propagation into the space-forming trinity, through to its completion in the four elements.”(28) In the Cabala, the work of creation unfolds according to a similar pattern, in four steps starting with the letters of the Tetragrammaton (the unpronounceable divine name); in alchemy too this fourfold step, the axiom of Maria Prophetissa or Maria the Jewess (c. first century CE) a famous female alchemist, plays a leading part.(29) The axiom states that as one becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth. This statement has been used in alchemy for more than a thousand years and emphasizes the differences between numbers three and four.
During this time period certain secret societies had formed, professing to possess the secrets of alchemy. One group named after a father Christian Rosenkreuz, called themselves Rosicrucians and released anonymous manifestoes admonishing humanity to strive towards peace and unity. They were heavily sought after, yet no one knew who they were. M. W. Sharon says in a biography of Fludd that “he also developed a great interest in Rosicrucian philosophy and was to become one of the Movement’s most ardent supporters.”(30) Because of the tireless attacks on Paracelsian fanatics, whom Andreas Libavius (1540-1616 CE) accused of blasphemy and black magic, Robert Fludd was prompted to write his first Apologia for the Rosicrucians in 1616.(31) Manly P. Hall in his Secret Teachings of All Ages states that “Three figures are outstanding links between Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry: Michael Maier (1568-1622 CE), Elias Ashmole (1617-1692 CE), and Robert Fludd. De Quincy considers Robert Fludd to be the immediate father of Freemasonry. Arthur Edward Waite considers Fludd as second to none of the disciples of Paracelsus, even going so far as to declare that Fludd far surpassed his master.”(32) Declaring that Fludd was attempting to distort the Scriptures into a book of chemical formulae, Gassendi (1592-1655 CE) published a book in 1630 in which he unwittingly tried to prove the Bible to contain nothing reasonable, logical, or philosophical, but to be the direct inspiration of God. This inspired Fludd to write another Apologia in which he expounded the deeper principles of Rosicrucian alchemy.(33) These principles were based on the Kabbalah.
In conclusion, Robert Fludd used the art of astrology on the cosmological foundation of Kabbalah to perfect his Paracelsian alchemy to treat his patients. Perhaps his rigid refusal to accept the new theories of Copernicus, Kepler (1571-1630 CE), and Galilei (1564-1642 CE), was based on the belief that since Kabbalah teaches that God is beyond our understanding, that the new science would never be able to fully accomplish empirically proving the mysteries of nature.
Bibliography
1. Sharon, M.W. Doctor Robert Fludd, biographical text found on www.levity.com/alchemy/fludd1.html
2. Text from Galileo Project: a catalogue of the scientific community found on http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/Catalog/Files/fludd.html
3. Sharon, M.W. Doctor Robert Fludd
4. Thomas, Keith Religion and the Decline of Magic Penguin Books Limited (1991), p. 271
5. Thomas p. 319
6. Thomas p. 322
7. Gilchrist, Cherry The Elements of Alchemy Element books limited (1991), p, 92
8. Thomas p. 267
9. Kaplan, Aryeh Sefer Yetzirah (the Book of Creation) In Theory and Practice Samuel Weiser inc. (1990), p. ix
10. ibid.
11. Roob, Alexander The Hermetic Museum: Alchemy & Mysticism Taschen (1997), p. 256
12. Godwin, David Godwin’s Cabalistic Encyclopedia 3rd edition Llewellyn Publications (1994), p. 119
13. Godwin pp. 216, 330
14. Godwin pp. 35, 37, 60, 342
15. Roob p. 45
16. Roob p. 57
17. Roob p. 56
18. Roob p. 641
19. Roob p. 250
20. Roob p. 111
21. Roob p. 529
22. Roob p. 117
23. Roob p. 104
24. Roob p. 101
25. Roob p. 558
26. Roob p. 94
27. Roob p. 98
28. ibid.
29. ibid.
30. Sharon, M.W. Doctor Robert Fludd
31. Roob p. 300
32. Hall, Manly P. The Secret Teachings of All Ages Philosophical Research Society Inc. (1988), p. CXLII (142)
33. Hall p. CIX (109)
