GIORDANO BRUNO Martyrdom 17th February 1600.

A Philosopher, burnt alive at the Piazza Campo di Fiore, Rome at the bequest of the Pope the 17th February 1600 for Uncontrite and Stubbornly holding an opinion or doctrine deemed contrary to the Views of the Church and the Pope. To wit, for Heresy.

This is the chief reason Giordano Bruno, as a casualty of certain rather disturbing processes the Roman Catholic Church apparently arent still done with – has stuck to the windshield of western civilization. It isn`t a matter of whether he was right or wrong, or even sane.. as with Michael Socin, Peter Valdez,and Jan Hus – he was put to the death by the Church; the Church having suffered so many losses by way of great men and women; great hearts, great minds – unexcelled talent – to the persecutions by the heathen emperors and populace against the people calling themselves “Christians”.

Giordano Bruno was born Filippo Bruno ,in the town of Nola, near Naples, in 1548. The son of Giovanni Bruno, a soldier, and Fraulissa Savolino.

At eleven years of age he enrolled for clerical education at the Monestary of San Domenico. Upon entering the Dominican Order, he took the name Giordano. It became a period of turmoil for young Giordano; he was bright enough, and engaged enough, but perhaps due to his enthusiasm, his hunger for truth and beauty,he did not appear to recognize the strictures and authority of his teachers and monastic superiors. He addressed difficult questions thinking it was natural for all thinking men to give them consideration; of course, he was commended for his interest because he was considered an innocent in the eyes of his elder brethren in the Order.

In the end his opinions, which he boldly defended with arguments available from both the Classics, the Fathers and the Doctors of the Church, where to his contemporaries not only heterodox,

but heretical. For this, even though he was fifteen at the time, he was censored and punished within the strictures of the Order, nevetheless he continued to debate matters thought to be undebateable.

His patron within the Order brought him nevertheless to the Pope in Rome to demonstrate his skills at the

Ars Memoria, the Art of memory – and to hear him elucidate on the Aristotelian “laws” as filtered through the doctor of the Church Thomas Aquinas who was, and remains, a great authority for ecclesiastical, theological,philosophical and “scientific” inquiry and debate.

By 1572 he was ordained a priest as a result of 8 years studies and his prominence in ecclesiastical learning.

When he left the confines of the monastery for good ,sometimes described as a flight, an exile or even a pilgrimage of inquiry into matters unavailable to him within the constraints of the Monastic institution – he began frequenting even more questionable thinkers than himself, among them are the occult

philosopher, a portenous, sanguine master of the “arcane” going by the name Giovanni Battista Della Porta who at his prime had published a work named Natural Magic. Through his relationship with the Count Della Porta young Bruno became simultaneously introduced to the jovial social circles of nobles and their entertainers and learned friends, as well as with the works of Plato, Plotin and the corpus ascribed to

Hermes Trismegistus. Through this fascination and eventual thorough study of these, Giordano Bruno became one of the greater latter influences of the Hermetic revival, otherwise known as the Renaissance, or rebirth.

This new lifestyle and focus for his talents attracted attention, also such attention which make you leave a city in the middle of the night, leaving no forwarding-address or notice to your host in advance. By 1576 he had become so famous to the officers of the Inquisition in Naples that he had to leave the city. Paradoxically his safe-haven were to be Rome. Here he dedicated himself more thoroughly to writing, rather than debating, lecturing and speaking.

A confusion ensues while he stays as the guest of the Convent of Minerva, someone accused him of abusing his mandate as clergy/confessor in instilling heretical views and opinions regarding Ecclesiastical affairs and holy Theological doctrine in young conventuals and probationers, six months after accepting a position with the Convent he leaves without notice.

He reappears in Geneve – Geneve has been taken over by the Calvinists and they don`t appear to tolerate openly Catholic visitors . Those who hear reports of his appearance in Geneve and his being dressed secularly naturally conclude among themselves that he had become an apostate and had allowed himself to be converted into the Reformed Church. A brief month of the discovery

of who he actually where by the authorities in Geneve, he has to leave. After his leaving and the discovery, the officials of the Reformed Church deem fit to sub conditione excommunicate him from the Reformed Church, not wishing to have among its number such an infamous heretic, while not quite certain that he had ever been a convert!

By 1580 that he finally relenquished his Tonsure with the Preaching Friars of the St.Dominic (Dominik Guzman) upon leaving Italy for a more liberal and tolerant France. He stayed in Toulouse, Lyons and finally in Paris. In Lyons he wrote and let publish his Clavis Magna, or “Great Key”, which detailed his understanding of the Lullist Art or Ars Memoria, here he combined his fascination with the Neo-platonic predecessors to the teachings of Blessed Ramon Llull who was

a great influence not only on Bruno, but on Bruno`s time and the preceding Renaissance. By combining the doctrines and speculations

of the Egyptians,Pythagoreans,Persians and ancient Greeks (through the Neo-Platonic “explanation” of these) concerning the dispositions of Names, correspondences of Number,Alphabeth,deities,stars,constellations,planetaries,plants,animals and so

forth in a demonstrative and assertive manner in connection with the more neutral Judeo-Hebraic adaptations of Ramon Llull himself – Bruno became overtly identified with occult philosophy himself. Some few took exception to the rather superstitious “outrage” this caused in certain circles of society – among them Sir Philip Sidney and John Colet in England.

In Paris he lectured at the College of Cambrai, but he met great opposition when he sought a teaching position at the University, as a consequence he engaged himself in a more public form of oration. With his apparently endless supply of controversial ideas this entailed catastrophe – he outraged and exhausted several patrons, he wrote the satire named “The Torchbearer”, which was received as satire, so naturally he had to leave Paris, preferably leave France. Now it seemed every “Latin” had a query with the philosopher from Nola, everyone could seemingly report they had brushed shoulders with him and came from the encounter with unease and hurt.

There was actually a lot of public complaining going on, Having won some favour, apparently at the court of Queen Elizabeth, perhaps through Sir Philip Sidney – he was able to cross over to England in 1583. He lived for two years as a guest at the residence of the French Ambassador in London. Like in Paris he encountered a certain unwillingless towards letting him lecture at the established academical centres.

During his stay he let publish a bitter tract called “The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast”, while much of more common fare in the underground of dissenting, mainly Protestant circles of intellectuals, the very rumour about it scandalized his former circles in Italy, France and Germany. He vented his frustration with the Ivy league at Oxford in his Ash Wednesday Supper, wherein he also, apparently ineptly with regards to science – argued for the reconsideration of Copernicus theory of a Heliocentric

cosmos. His stay in London were significant for the further course of his life – he had been more explicit about what he thought and felt, what he considered his unique grasp on Truth and the laws that regulate being, and had let a certain bitterness and counter-scorn be known in writing. Several of his works had been put on Index by the Vatican. He was now infamous and almost every Catholic he had known thought he had not only left his Order but the Church as well. As a result of all the moaning and bruised ego`s in his trail, all well aware at how dangerous Bruno was perceived of being in certain Roman

Catholic quarters – he was finally lured into a ruse and probably thought of as good as dead already by an unknown enemy posing as a prospective patron. He invites Bruno to Venice, has him dine and drink well and good at his table, traps him in his quarters and let sound the alarm to the Inquisition that he caught the infamous Nolan.

A Martyr? In origin Bruno was an Italian, by birth a Roman Catholic, by vocation even within the Ecclesiastical Orders. At which time he was apprehended and imprisoned for 9 years to the end that he was finally burned for heresy – the Church itself disputed his affiliation with the Church; which is to say, if the Church denied he was a Catholic matters are quite simply that he is a casuality of a brutal, extended religious war which doesnt seem to end even today – between Roman Catholicism and the Protestants.

But he was burned for heresy and he continued to argue in the manner he was famous for – which disturbed by the ecclesiastical authorities, although the subject matter of his inquiry and dispute were never ecclesiastical.

It is my opinion John Paul II, the present Pope – also apologized on behalf of his office – the work of his predecessor in having Giordano Bruno and so many others burned for … having a contrary opinion and speaking it.

Was he a champion for free thought? He expressed his opinion without regards to others and their standards and sensibilities – he did contribute to set an example of sorts, I dare say I cannot say all for the good – rather he also made, at his very last, everyone aware of the price asked should they themselves do as he did. I view the period in time as a catatonic with a bleeding forehead from banging too hard and too repetively against its own walls. A horrible miscarriage of the middle ages. Bruno, with John Dee, with

Giovanni Battista Della Porta, with Edmund Spenser and Shakespeare and Bacon, where very much part of that time as well, they suffered as much as those walking around freely without a thought in the world except for their next meal; sometimes a difficult and complex practical problem, albeit principally simple in theory. These conditions birthed some of the most deplorable tendencies in modern thought and religion; what the west could have done without – with some honourable few, very few, exceptions.

At the Esoteric Archives they have a section dedicated to the writings

of Giordano Bruno, go there and make up your own opinion.

Sources:

Online

The Giordano Bruno website. A Great Resource

Giordano Bruno – the forgotten philosopher. by John J. Kessler.

at Infidels.Org

Giordano Bruno biography at the Galileo Project

Tau Jean II Jean Bricaud
Born 11.February 1881 at Neuville sur Ain (Ain).



Jean Bricaud was and remained an employee of the Bank Crèdit Lyonnais from the time he was 16 years old,after being indentured for seminary studies for the Roman Catholic Priesthood by
his pious parents.
While still attending his seminarian studies in Lyon, he frequented the circles of Elia Alta,
a bookseller who is also a spiritualist – and the therapeutist Bouvier,
who were a pupil of Eliphas Jacques Charrot. Bouvier shared his passion for the
traditions of the Kabbalah and occult philosophy with the young man.
In 1899 he became acquianted with Papus who at that time held lineages from many esoteric
colleges and orders and where, as of 4 years earlier, installed as Gnostic Bishop for his own district.
Like his friend he was early in his life fascinated with the growing attention to the science interior and universal
represented in the Occult literate circle and sought like him access to the secrets of
God,the universe,life and everything else in books, in initiations, in personal pupilship
to more or less dependable modern teachers. While Papus trailed behind him a mass
of pamphlets and treatises addressed to a larger audience, Jean Bricaud focused on those circles in which they both moved, drawing a select audience for his insights and discoveries.

Tau Synesius (Léonce-Eugène Fabre des Essarts), the elected successor of
Tau Valentin II(Jules Doinel) to the Patriarchate of L`Eglise
Gnostique nominated him Bishop for the diocese of Lyons, after
first becoming associated with the Ordre Martiniste of Papus (Gerard Encausse) and arranged for his consecration and installment for
this office with the assistance of Tau Vincent(Papus) in 1901 with the ecclesiastical name Tau Johannes, when Bricaud was 20 years old!

In 1907 he along with several of his Bishop colleagues, among them Papus split from Synesius` church, and founded the Eglise Gnostique Universelle.
This would become the Church which received mandate and assent from four specific currents of contemporary neo-gnostic traditions:
The Primitive Johannite Church, the Vintrasian Interior Sanctuary of the Carmel Elie, the Eglise Gnostique of Doinel and a fourth unknown and
apparently secret Neo-Valentinian “school”.

You can get an impression of where Jean Bricaud thought this new Gnostic Church was heading by reading the
Patriarchal Homily of Tau Jean II on his installment 25.February 1908, Lyon, at
Most Revd. Archbishop Tau Vincent II, Philip Andrew Garver`s www.gnostique.net

It concludes with this supplication:

My very dear Brothers, raise your eyes toward the heights, turn your sights toward the true Light side, intoxicate yourselves with the ineffable delights of the spiritual Pleroma, and you will acquire strength to complete the holy work, the real work, the divine work. Ah, my Brothers, through all the tempests and storms that are unleashed upon our hylic world, when false doctrines try to lose souls, do not lose sight of the high summits, and if you touch the earth, may it be as the dove of the ark that remains only an instant to clasp the peaceful branch of the olive tree!
To you, my very dear Sisters, I make a more particular call. I know very precious is your course in this apostolate and I know how much our feminine world hides in her salons and her mystical retreats the noble and courageous emulators of Maximilla and Ésclarmonde de Foix. Better than we, you know how to find the soul’s path! We are but the Word that conquers; you are the Heart that persuades. Unite with our brothers to re-establish the community on a strong and profound foundation, the visible church of the Pneumatics that the manifestations from on High announce and promise to us.

Jean Bricaud moved in many circles – from the most conventional and devout of Catholic intellectuals, to eccentric and mysterious sages,
tricksters and phantasts. With his introduction to the Western Gnosis, be it the masonic illuminism of the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Misraim, the internal therapeutic theurgy of Elie Alta, Bouvier and Maistre Anthelme Nizier Phillipe, the enthusiastic messianism of the followers of Pierre-Michel Eugene Vintras who had a French headquarters in the city of Lyons – the path of the heart of Martinism as administrated by his friend Papus or the charismatic ritualism of Tau Synesius Gnostic Church,
he discovered a richness and diversity he prior to this thought he could only encounter in the Far East. Among his friends and associates later in life where Bishop Louis-Marie-François Giraud (d. 1951) who after having lived for many years as a Trappist Monk had joined the fray with the Gallican Catholic Church under the Apostolic protection of Archbishop Joseph Renè Villatte, from whom he could trace his Apostolic succession as a Bishop. Bishop Giraud`s consecrator was also a famous “Mage” the Abbe Julio(Jules Ernest Houssay,1844-1912), who through the introduction of Giraud, Jean Bricaud befriended. Louis-Marie-Francois Giraud consecrated Jean Bricaud, already a Gnostic Bishop with three verified lineages from heterodox and esoteric lines of succession on the 21st of July 1913, as Apostolic Bishop, with a fraternal affiliation with the Gallicanne communion.
Thus in the history of the visible modern manifestation of the Gnosis, a Communion of Gnostics where again reunited with the Communion of Christians of the Apostolic and Catholic Church; a situation which Saint Valentine invested so much into preserving, but which were destroyed by countless schisms and resulting persecutions of outsiders and esoterics in the Church of Rome as well as the Church of Constantinople.
On February 21st 1934, 70 years hence in a few days time – Tau Jean II were received in the higher Assembly in the Pleroma, to, within the Heart of God,
watch over us in the company of victors,saints,holy men and women – and the entire cosmos of angels, archangels, principalities, thrones, cherubim, seraphim
and the entirety of entirities. Having ensured a continuation of the Psykikos-Pneumatikos oikumene initiated in secrecy by the Valentinians, as a continuation of the Mandate from the Holy Spirit through the disciples +John,+Thomas,+Andrew,+Mark as well as the hierophantic mysteries dispensed by +Mathias and the wisdom traditions donated to the Church by our dear Apostle +Paul – within the vehicle of the Universal Gnostic Church.
Jean Bricaud, in ecclesia named Tau Jean II was succeeded, of his own wish and election, as Patriarch by Constant Martin Chevillon,
a man of the same fervour,solemnitude and rectitude as himself, who was sadly martyred on the 22nd of March 1944 by partisans to the Nazi occupant
powers and mock goverment, in Lyon.

I know that Candlemas was last Sunday (1.February) that this celebration all around the Christian world commenced. But I still have some impressions and thoughts around the theme.

The Gnostic Lectionary, used by the contemporary Gnostic Church for which I am called to serve in the capacity of servant (Deacon); Ecclesia Gnostica – offers this reading of the Gospel (In the Eastern Church at the time the Evangel is to be uttered, the congregation cry for “Wisdom!”, very appropriate!), The Gospel according to the Apostle Thomas:

Jesus said: I shall choose you, one out of a thousand, and two out of ten thousand, and they shall stand as a single one.
His disciples said: “Show us the place where thou art, for it is necessary for us to seek it.” He said to them: “Whoever has ears let him hear. Within a man of light there is light and he lights the whole world. When he does not shine, there is darkness.” Jesus said: “Love thy brother as thy soul, guard him as the apple of thine eye.”

At the time I read this I had been studying Henry Corbin`s classic The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, a lot of that which he gave me in that book jumped back up at the recognition of the text I read.

This is my understanding; that this Light is established In Man, with Man is meant the particular and the sum of the parts, rather than dissolving into it in an absolute manner, we amplify and extend it through our own individuation,
in receiving and giving. Each one of us is thus, in that we are Man, each on our own, and we constitute Man, in our communion as humanity -are “lights to the world”; the world itself would not receive it because it did not recognize it, rather we became the recipients of such lamps.

In Corbin`s book The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism pp.18 , he reproduces an excerpt from the Ghàyat al-Hakîm (Goal of the Sage) of Majriti :

“When I wished to bring to light the science of the mystery and modality of creation, I came upon a subterranean vault filled with darkness and winds.
I saw nothing because of the darkness, nor could I keep it alight because of the violence of the winds. Lo and behold, a person then appeared before me in my sleep in a form of the greatest beauty. He said to me: “Take a lamp and place it under a glass to shield it from the winds: then it will give thee light in spite of the winds. Then go into the underground chamber; dig in its center and from there bring forth a certain God-made image, designed according to the rules of Art. As soon as you have drawn at this image, the winds will cease to blow through the underground chamber. Then dig in its four corners and you will bring to light the knowledge of the mysteries of creation, the causes of Nature, the origins and modalities of things.” At that I said: “Who then art thou?” He answered “I am thy Perfect Nature. If thou wishest to see me, call me by name.”

From a Gnostic`s perspective, to recognize is to receive, in the manner of an embrace, not a passive and cold intellectual “observation”. The specific type of Love, determined by the interior relationship and proper occasion, between the two; would reflect and refract the essences between them, in such a way that indeed the “Two become One”; so there is talk of a Man of Light, who is Light to others and to the world in the same capacity that the Heavenly Light, embodied by Christ and emitted at the event of the Transfiguration at the Mount (to which we now hasten) is Light to Him.
This receiving vs. “not receiving” is reflected, I feel, in this saying from the Gospel according to Philip:

“Jesus took them all by stealth, for he did not appear as he was, but in the manner in which they would be able to see him. He appeared to them all. He appeared to the great as great. He appeared to the small as small. He appeared to the angels as an angel, and to men as a man. Because of this, his word hid itself from everyone. Some indeed saw him, thinking that they were seeing themselves, but when he appeared to his disciples in glory on the mount, he was not small. He became great, but he made the disciples great, that they might be able to see him in his greatness.

He said on that day in the thanksgiving, “You who have joined the perfect light with the Holy Spirit, unite the angels with us also, as being the images.”

which also reflects upon the mystical epistemology of the Gnostic:

“It is not possible for anyone to see anything of the things that actually exist unless he becomes like them. This is not the way with man in the world: he sees the sun without being a sun; and he sees the heaven and the earth and all other things, but he is not these things. This is quite in keeping with the truth. But you saw something of that place, and you became those things. You saw the Spirit, you became spirit. You saw Christ, you became Christ. You saw the Father, you shall become Father. So in this place you see everything and do not see yourself, but in that place you do see yourself – and what you see you shall become.”

Sight,Knowledge and Being are directly related to the reality of our spiritual self. It is not bereft of sight, when it approaches the One.
That we take care to thus recognize eachother – as realities, as mysteries, as plenitudes – not in poverty and misery, witholding love, but rather – in the love which embrace our visions highest and loftiest, appears to me to be the practical application of this loving our brother as our soul.
Concerning this Light, the Gospel of Truth has this:

“He labored even on the Sabbath for the sheep which he found fallen into the pit. He saved the life of that sheep, bringing it up from the pit in order that you may understand fully what that Sabbath is, you who possess full understanding. It is a day in which it is not fitting that salvation be idle, so that you may speak of that heavenly day which has no night and of the sun which does not set because it is perfect. Say then in your heart that you are this perfect day and that in you the light which does not fail dwells.”

I am now the voice of these words which has been handed down to us with such care, such love (So very true of this “hidden gospel” in its writing, in its transcription – and in its protection from the book pyres of the Fourth Century!)
, Corbin opined “To speak, is truelly to translate – from a language of angels to the tongue of men” – to speak truelly, which is to address from a position of the newly born wisdom, to draw up from the deepest well, a serving of living water.

According to the Revised Common Lectionary a progression including 8 liturgical “occasions” is incorporated in the one and same Ecclesiastical/Calendric “season” – from January 4th (The Epiphany) to February 28th (Transfiguration). Apparently this follows the pattern discerned from the Synoptic Gospels, to which is added the Gospel according to John.

In the Gospel of Philip we find these words of the event of Jesus

Baptism at the hands of John the Baptist:

“Jesus appeared […] Jordan – the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven. He who was begotten before everything, was begotten anew. He who was once anointed, was anointed anew. He who was redeemed, in turn redeemed (others).

Indeed, one must utter a mystery. The Father of everything united with the virgin who came down, and a fire shone for him on that day. He appeared in the great bridal chamber. Therefore his body came into being on that very day. It left the bridal chamber as one who came into being from the bridegroom and the bride. So Jesus established everything in it through these. It is fitting for each of the disciples to enter into his rest.

Adam came into being from two virgins, from the Spirit and from the virgin earth. Christ therefore, was born from a virgin to rectify the Fall which occurred in the beginning.

By perfecting the water of baptism, Jesus emptied it of death. Thus we do go down into the water, but we do not go down into death, in order that we may not be poured out into the spirit of the world. When that spirit blows, it brings the winter. When the Holy Spirit breathes, the summer comes.”

I thought it appropriate for a number of reasons –

to recount: In the full pattern of the mystery of Christ

which incorporates also the “psychic” – we find

1:Incarnation 2:Baptism 3:Transfiguration 4:Crucifixion 5:

Resurrection, 6: Ascent – and most significant 7: Descent

to assist. In the apocryphal story of Jesus descent into Hades,

He does so with the intent of “completing the word” or “completing

the prophecy” – but in a sense, of becoming completely the salvific

agent on all levels.

The Valentinian school appreciates this event as taking place before

creation, before “the fall” – before Adam.

Being as it is – this is before 1. in the pattern, but the emanation and

descent of Christ begins long before all events pertaining to humanity

as such.

“The function of the Image of Christ, as it relates to the “Inner Man” and

the “Indwelling Christ” of Mysticism and early Christian theology as well –

is to bring about a centering of the human personality from an extroverted

and unfocused condition of confusion and chaos into an integrated Mandala

representing the fullness and emptyness of the Origin – the Divine Self.

If this Image, then, to us consists of the stuff of History and Legend we

are trapped in the extroverted condition of being unfocused, lost in

details and the interrelationship of every component of the actual Self

with counterparts associative on the exterior, the outside of things. The

Christ of History is impotent in giving solace to the longings of the

Spiritual man, the Man that seeks communion with the divine – it is a

finding of many a mystic that not only in relationship to the world of

phenomena, but also the Cosmos of Time and Space – the Divine, although

much searched for in these regions, are not to be found.

The incarnation of the Logos, rather than bringing the Divine into the World, in Gnostic exegesis, confronts the conscious dweller inside the context of the World with an Image of the wholly transcendent and the wholly “other”.

The Gnostic Christ is the one voice that would state, in the midst of flesh

and mortality, “I am from another race” and “What I am, you also can

become, if you follow me”. The Christ of the Christian Mass which is the

topic proper that C.G.Jung deals with in the Essay “Transformation

symbolism of the Mass” – invites the Christian to partake of its blood and

body as vitalizing agents, having the precise function that Jung ascribes

to it. It is broken up into particles and particulars from a state of

original Union, it gives its union and integrity up in order to be received

and found within the communicant, as he experiences communion with the

Divine, the wholly Other – and what it produces as a result, in the

recipient of the Bread and Wine experiences a result that is the

counterpart to the breaking asunder, he becomes whole, he is established

after the pattern of unitive and integral Order that is present in the

Pleroma or fullness above and transcendent of his earthly condition.

Partaking in the matter of flesh and the matter of blood will not help him

achieve these ends, but as Christ is known to have the quality of

Transfiguration – as demonstrated at the Baptism in Jordan, the

Transfiguration at Mount Tabor, the crucifixion mystery as experienced by

John mentioned briefly above, the resurrection and the ascension, and also,

in a sense – in the Mystery of the Mass.

Through it He brings this quality into the elements so that they become his

Blood, his vital life force, what has been referred to as “the Living

Water” in the Holy Scriptures of Christendom – and the Body, his Logos

Nature as the incarnating prinsciple, his Nature and Substance – not from

mere Matter or mere Symbol, but from the Incarnation Mystery itself, the

very activity of focusing, receiving and responding. For this reason there

is absolutely no questions raised concerned the aspect of Christian

sacramental practise that rationalist moderns are apalled at and has

problems relating to – namely the Mystery and the Miracle of the

Transubstantiation.”