III. The discovery of a panacea, or universal remedy, under the name of elixir vitce, by

which all diseases were to be cured and life indefinitely prolonged.
The theory of the small but, I believe, increasing school who believe in Hermeticism as a
factor in the actual development of Freemasonry may be thus shortly stated —

1. That an Hermetic Society existed in the world, whose palpable manifestation was that

of the Eosicrucian fraternity.

2. That mystic associations, of which noted writers like Cornelius Agrippa- formed part,

are to be traced at the end of the fifteenth century, if not earlier, with their annual
assemUies, their secrets and mysteries, their signs of recognition, and the like.

3. The forms of Hermeticism — of occult invocations — are also masonic, such as the sacred

Delta, the Pentalpha, the Hexagram (Solomon's Seal), the point within a circle.

4. Tlie so-called " magical alphabet," as may be seen in Barrett's " Magus," is identical

with the square characters which have been used as masons' marks at certain epochs,
and on part of so-called masonic cyphers.

5. [Gc7ic}-al Conclusions^ — Hermeticism is probably a channel in whicli the remains of

Archaic mysteries and mystical knowledge lingered through the consecutive ages.

Freemasonry, in all probability, has received a portion of its newer symbolical formulte and
emblematical types from the societies of Hermeticism.

At various points of contact. Freemasonry and Hermeticism, and vice versa, have aided,
sheltered, protected each other ; and that many of the more learned meml^ers of the monastic
profession were also Hermetics, is a matter beyond doubt, — nay, of absolute authority.

If ever there was a connection between the building fraternities and the monasteries, this
duplex channel of symbolism and mysticism would prevail ; and it is not at all unlikelj*, as it
is by no means unnatural in itself, that the true secret of the preservation of a system of
masonic initiation and ceremonial and teaching and mysterious life through so many centuries,
is to be attributed to this twofold influence of the legends of the ancient guilds, and the
influence of a contemporary Hermeticism.

The above statement I have drawn up from some notes kindly furnished by the Eev. A.

' Altliougb Brucker, op. cit., awards the credit of having introduced this terra to Van Helmont, it is assigned hy
Hcckethorn to Paracelsus, and its meaning described as "probably a corrinition of the German words 'all gcist,' 'all
spirit'" (Secret Soc. of All Ages and Countries, 1875, vol. i., p. 220).

^ See H. Morley, Life of Cornelius Agrippa Von Mettesheim, Doctor and Knight, commonly known as a Magiirian,
1856, passim; Monthly Review, second series, 1798, vol. .\xv., p. 304; Mackey, Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry, s. v.
Agrippa ; and ante, p. 76, note 1.

124 EARLY BRITISH FREEMASONRY— ENGLAND.

F. A. Woodford, and have merely to add, that the school of which he is the CorypTimus, disclaim
the theory — as being self-destructive — of the origin of Freemasonry in an Hermetic school, which
grouped itself around Elias Ashmole and his numerous band of adepts and astrologers, and of
which germs may be found in the mystical works of Amos Comenius, and the " Nova Atlantis "
of Bacon. 1