(1574-1637 e.v.)
by T. Apiryon
Robert Fludd was a Kentish Anglican alchemist, Paracelsist physician, mathematician, astronomer, cosmologist, Qabalist, and Rosicrucian apologist. Fludd was considered by Crowley to be an Adeptus Exemptus. Fludd was a prolific writer, and many of his works on alchemy, Rosicrucianism, occult medicine, the “magnetic” philosophy and various scientific theories survive. The illustration of a “Design suitable for top of altar,” Plate 2(b) of Book IV, Part III, is from Fludd’s Utriusque Cosmi Historia. Fludd was allegedly a member of the committee which drafted the “King James” translation of the bible in 1611.
His thirteen published works include A Compendious Apology for the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross (1616), The Apologetic Tractatus for the Society of the Rosy Cross (1617), Utriusque Cosmi Historia (1617-19), Summum Bonum (1629), and Clavis Philosophiae et Alchymiae (1633).
References:
Godwin, Joscelyn; Robert Fludd: Hermetic Philosopher and Surveyor of Two Worlds, Phanes Press, Grand Rapids, MI 1991
Huffmann, Wm. H.; Robert Fludd and the End of the Renaissance, Routledge, London 1988
Mackey, Albert G.; Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Masonic History Co., NY 1909
McIntosh, Christopher; The Rosicrucians, the History and Mythology of an Occult Order, Crucible, Wellingborough 1987
Turner, Robert; Elizabethan Magic, Element, Longmead 1989
Waite, Arthur Edward; The Real History of the Rosicrucians, London 1887
Yates, Frances; The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, ARK, London 1972/1986
Original Publication Date: 5/24/95
Originally published in Red Flame No. 2 – Mystery of Mystery: A Primer of Thelemic Ecclesiastical Gnosticism by Tau Apiryon and Helena; Berkeley, CA 1995 e.v.