Original subtitles

[music playing]

>> Books love me.

>> The name of the libraryis Bibliotheca Philosophica

Hermetica, the Library of Hermetic Philosophy.

This library, with therare books and manuscripts,

altogether, some 23,000 volumes.

>> The possibilities that Ihad to buy books was always

combined with the task toproduce every day a result

as an entrepreneur.

So I built a company.

And I made out of the profits of my company.

But it is not so that the bookscome like birds into the house

of treasures of Mr. Ritman.

Now, you have to make an effort to acquire them.

I built a library.

I bought books.

I brought them together.

The books that are on the shelves,

you have to open the information suddenly.

You come to the point that you are not

standing alone any longer.

And that is the fantastic point what I

call, the chain of [inaudible].

We are invited to be members.

>> That's what I love most in this library.

To see that in every singlebook in a different way.

And a book doesn't stand alone.

They stand together.

They are like in a continuousconversation with each other.

And that's what fascinates me.

>> By Western esotericism,we mean a set of currents

of movements, of authors, thatcan go back basically to Late

Antiquity and then to theMiddle Ages with a big revival

in the early modern periodduring the Renaissance.

And then which continue during the Enlightenment

and also throughout the 19th and 20th century.

Basically up to our days.

>> Western esotericism isthe study from the outside

to the inner reality.

You can call that occult streams,

you can call that esoteric streams.

You can call that hermetic streams.

It is like to dive intoall the different aspects

of a tradition.

>> Traditions that emergedand developed mostly in Europe

and in the Mediterranean basin.

>> To compose an alphabetof understanding.

But it never gives the meaningof the language itself.

>> Approaching the divine, approaching kind

of metaphysical reality,are precisely what we can

understand as the core of esotericism.

>> I was very interested in the human presence.

But not as the end of the story,but the beginning of the story

where I said, what is the man?

Why is he here?

He comes from the invisible, helives here, and he disappears.

If you look through the Hubble telescope

you can see this infinite universe.

And you see all different formsof energy that are, in a way,

on the move.

Perhaps we did not know butwe are experiencing a Big Bang

again.

We say you have the elements--

Earth, Water, Air, and Fire.

But I believe, for myself,that there's a new element

in the atmosphere.

A new element in the atmospherethat was invisible and came

to mystery schools and under theprotection of ceremonies where

there is a holy of holiness.

There this divine energy was kept as a secret.

I think that divine energy is now

available to billions and millions of persons.

And that is the so-called individualism.

Why if that doesn't refer anylonger, not a second longer,

with the old tradition, with the old generation,

with the way you think, you live, you are?

The domination of the past is broken.

It all ends in anarchy.

[music playing]

And that you see in this moment.

The international power feuds, conflicts,

that we are in a crisis.

Nobody can say, I have nothing to do with that.

It comes closer and closer.

We are not independent.

We are very dependent, more andmore dependent, to each other,

as we thought in the past.

>> We have main collecting areas.

And they are Hermetica, Alchemy,Mysticism and Rosicrucianism.

But related collecting areasare Kabbalah but also theosophy,

anthroposophy, so the moremodern movements originating

from the 19th century can also be found here.

>> Esotericism is in fact a modern word.

Because it was created in the 19th century.

But in fact, the history of the term is older.

The word comes from the Greek.

The ancient Greek esoterikos, which

is an objective, whichbasically means "interior."

It means something that is inner.

So something that is inside, as opposed

to something that is outside.

And in ancient Greece theterm was used especially

to refer to philosophy,to philosophical schools.

For instance, in the case of Plato,

in the case of Aristotle, the idea

was that there was a particular teaching that

was meant for a broader public.

And then there was a morerestrictive kind of teaching.

And that teaching would be reserved only

for a particular elite.

So you really needed to be a pupil.

>> That's Hermes Trismegistus.

That's called filius noster.

And here you see the Sun,the Moon and coming together,

it brings forward Hermes Trismegistus.

He's having can you say this, and it

is the symbol of initiate.

The [inaudible],, the cloak,an attribute of power.

The text of Hermes Trismegistusare written down already

in the pyramids of Sakkara in Egypt.

>> We have an exhibitionon Hermes Trismegistus And

the visual imagery connected with Hermes,

a very colorful exhibition thatshows you the roots of Hermes

Trismegistus.

He is part Egyptian, part Greek.

He is the Egyptian godThoth and the Greek Hermes.

And these two combinedwere Hermes Trismegistus.

This is a beautiful image of Hermes Trismegistus.

It's a reproduction from a mosaic in Sienna.

He is a wisdom teacher, a sagewho presents to the Egyptians

the laws and the letters.

>> Originally the distinction, perhaps,

did not have much to do with spirituality.

Later on this idea wasconnected to the ancient mystery

cults like [inaudible] orthe Mysteries of Eleusis.

And therefore a more spiritual meaning

was attached to the word.

And it was thought that infact, an esoteric teaching

had to do with somethingthat was religious, something

that was spiritual.

So it had to do, for instance,with the destiny of man

after death.

That is basically theorigin of the modern concept

of esotericism.

>> This is one of the mostimportant books in our library,

a book by Hermes Trismegistus,the name giver of the library

of course.

Hermes.

And we collect all the editionsof his philosophical works.

We call it now the Corpus Hermeticum.

In the older days it was called Pimandre,

after the pupil that isinstructed by the philosopher

Hermes.

>> The Egyptian god Thoth,and the Greek Hermes,

they are both scribes, messengers.

And magic is also attributedto the two of them.

And that is why theywere conflated and became

Hermes Trismegistus, the thrice greatest.

>> Classical culture becomesless prominent during

the Middle Ages.

Greek culture was sort of forgotten.

But then it comes back in the Renaissance.

>> One of the treasures ofthe library is the Corpus

Hermeticum of Hermes Trismegistus, on vellum.

>> At the end of the Middle Ages,

with the conquest of Constantinople,

there is the rediscovery ofthe Neoplatonic texts and texts

by Plato, so the rediscoveryof Platonic philosophy.

But also the rediscovery of the hermetic texts,

which played really a key role in the revival

of what we call esotericideas, especially in Italy.

In Florence, more particularly,with Cosimo de Medici and then

Lorenzo Magnifico of course, with scholars

such as Marsilio Ficino, Piccola de la Mirandola.

It all starts in Italy but thenit's spread all around Europe.

>> I was in the Medici library in Florence.

And it was built by Michelangelo.

And there was an exhibitionto commemorate the 500

years since the death of Marsilio Ficino.

The director of the Medici library,

she said to me, Mr. Ritman,I have a present for you.

But can't take it away.

She gave me in my hands.

And that was the original copyof the manuscript of the Corpus

Hermeticum.

Cosimo de Medici gave an order to Marsilio Ficino

to translate the text of the Corpus Hermeticum.

And then it was printed.

And you see it there in an original publication

on parchment.

>> There's also a very, very interesting story.

When we did an exhibitionon the text and tradition

of the Corpus Hermeticum,we had a Dutch translation

in manuscript of the Corpus Hermeticum.

But one half of the book was missing.

In that period I still lived at home.

And at a certain evening, something

was put in our postbox.

And it was a booklet.

And it said, with a small note, Mr. Ritman,

I think you should have this in the library.

And that was so amazingbecause it was the missing part

of that same particular book.

That was reunited in this way.

And these are moments you cannoteven imagine it to happen.

And it has all happened in the past 30 years.

>> We're talking about Hermes Trismegistus.

And another attribute is theouroboros cyclical serpent

biting its own tail.

And to end with the Staff of Hermes.

And there's a beautiful pictureat the end, an engraving,

which captures all three.

You have the Greek Hermes on top.

In the middle it's the hieroglyphs,

the Egyptian Thoth.

And here you have Hermes Trismegistus

in Oriental garb, the wisesage, the wisdom teacher.

All three are herecombined in this engraving

from the late 18th century.

>> This is one of the latereditions of the Corpus

Hermeticum, a scholarly edition in Latin.

In other languages, suchas Italian, Dutch, English,

there are also editionsof the Corpus Hermeticum.

All the books were very often rebound.

And not only once butmaybe four or five times.

And every time a new binding was put around the book,

the binder cut the paper nice and sharp.

But we lose a bit of text then.

This is the first time the texts of Hermes

were translated into German.

And as you can see that was rather late.

It's 1706.

Of course, everybody couldread Latin in those days.

So they kept printing the Latin edition.

An illustration like this, of course,

has to do with the book.

It refers to the Emerald Table,also a text ascribed to Hermes.

And it says, so above, so below.

The macrocosmos, that the worldabove, the world of the gods,

and the microcosmos, the world of man.

>> This Corpus Hermeticumis also having the Tabula

Smaragdina.

>> This is a beautiful engravingfrom the early 17th century

called the Tabula Smaragdina.

And one of the most pregnantphrases from this very brief

text, emerald tablet of Hermes,is, "that which is above

is like that which is below."

And it just tells you allabout the intimate connection

between the macrocosm and the microcosm.

>> In this period of time, manypersons are coming to an idea

that there is something hiddenbehind the curtain of visible

life.

>> A hidden meaning that has to be found.

A hidden meaning that has been handed down

in the form of tradition,or hidden meaning that

can be discovered throughparticular experiences

of revelation, of contact withthe divine dimension with God.

Or also with nature, for instance.

A mystical experience of fusion with nature.

>> Let's climb the mountain.

Let's try to reach the top.

Or, let's go deep in the earth.

But what you find out at the end of the story,

you only find at the certain moment,

some persons will climb to the top.

Some persons who dive so deep in the mystery.

>> This hidden meaning canbe found in different ways,

in different places.

It can be found in the text.

For instance, the Bible.

But also all other sacred texts.

It can also be found in the Koran.

We think about Islam.

But it can also be found in nature.

An idea that has been widespreadsince the Middle Ages--

God is speaking to us not onlythrough the textual revelation

of the Bible, but also throughnature when we have contact

with the natural real.

We can read symbols.

We can read signs.

And through a particular hermeneutical ability,

which is the ability to interpret

these signs and these symbols, we

can understand the hidden message.

So we can understand whatGod is trying to tell us.

>> So the only thing is to open the curtain.

And then you come in alandscape of inner reality.

But that will not saythat you reach your goal.

The man who climbed to the top and the man who

was diving into the waterto find that hermetic pearl.

The fantastic thing is that he brought it

in a fish bowl frame, that everybody

could touch the experience.

That everybody could receive that experience.

And that is how, I would say, so mysterious.

>> Gradually, HermesTrismegistus becomes really

associated with alchemy.

And he becomes the fatherof all philosophers.

And the practitioners of alchemy become

known as the sons ofHermes, the filii hermeti.

So there's a very close bondbetween Hermes and alchemy.

In this library, on theseshelves, you find alchemy.

You find hermetica.

And the two are very much related.

Hermes is, so to speak, thepatron saint of alchemy.

In the 16th and 17th centuries,people who performed alchemy,

alchemists, were known as the sons of Hermes.

So there is a very close connection

between alchemy and Hermes.

[music playing]

>> You don't find manyalchemical symbols painted.

This is one of the great momentsalso in my interest as an art

collector.

>> It shows the triumph of alchemy.

A triumphal chariot with--

>> Basil Valentine.

>> As it has never beenreproduced and never been

looked at by scholars.

This little painting isprobably unique in the history

of alchemical imagery.

>> A lady, who is thenegative side of alchemy,

tries to attract, I wouldsay, the pseudo-alchemists.

All the real adepts were taking the secrets

of the keys of Basil Valentineto the real process of alchemy.

>> I only recognized it becauseI was looking in an old book.

And there it was redrawn.

And I thought, I recognized this drawing.

This is the picture that Mr. Ritman

has hanging on his wall for 20 years.

And then I took a closer look and found out what

an extremely rare piece we have here.

>> For me, the imagery ofthe library is so interesting

because the symbolic engravingsand drawings that you will find

in many books of this library,they contain the same elements.

Like the circle and the square and the triangle.

And their meaning is, in fact, universal.

But there is endless ways thatthese symbols can be applied,

whether in the work of Christian Kabbalists

or in the works of a mystic like Jakob

Boehme or a Christian hermeticthinker as Robert Fludd.

>> I was always very curious.

I was never satisfied with explanations.

And I said to myself, let me go and look

to the reality of things.

And therefore, I knew, that I was

a spark between theinvisible life as a spark

and then disappear again.

Mr. Ritman disappeared.

So I ask myself, when I amonly a spark, a light flash

in a moment, why I should notbuild a library of awareness,

of research.

I started this librarywith the hermetic science.

The hermetic science is ascience of all awareness.

I am convinced.

With the Hermetic tradition,you come into contact

not only with people, but also with religions,

with mystery schools, with initiates.

And for me, the mysteryschools around the world,

they connected to the master plan

and with the flow of human awareness through,

I would say, the millenniums.

This millennium is acompletely different paradigm

of references than what wesaw, so far, in the last 5,000

years.

Different developments of religion.

Different developments of spirituality.

And now it comes togetherin one global goal.

And that is, for me, gnosis.

Gnosis.

Hermeticism, agnosticism,they have the same roots

in all the stories, in allthe religions of the world.

It has to do with, Idon't want to call it God.

But I want to call it Creator.

Creation.

And creation and men.

The three aspects of, I would say, the divine.

The element of nature.

The two elements of nature,the male and the female,

come together in a macrocosm.

>> Gnosis is the third componentof our European cultural

heritage.

And that's what we have here in the library.

[chanting music]

>> Gnosticism.

They speak about light and darkness.

The point in Hermeticismis that they don't reject

the gnostic approach of life.

But they say it is the task of a human being,

through daily experience in your life, where

you meet positive and negative influences,

to come to the point that theyare always going together.

That they have a meaning.

If we don't see thatthis library has meaning,

if we don't see that thelast 12,000 years are also

a reflection of the waves oflife, if we don't see that,

then we don't come to a point of concentration.

And so this library is a point of concentration.

>> Of all the books in the Ritman Library,

I love the hermeticbooks most because to me,

this hermetic worldview, therelation between god, kosmos,

man, is the essence of human consciousness.

That's the universal aspect inall religious and philosophical

traditions.

And what's most importantis that a human being, him

or herself, it's about us.

It's about you.

It's about me.

In the hermetic tradition it's said,

when you want to know God, know yourself.

Study nature.

And you will know God.

>> The only reason thateverything is not OK is that we

lack knowledge.

Knowledge of a dimension that we don't

bring into our daily practice.

The gnosis is ours.

It is an energy field.

What we don't use together, thatis the misuse of the spirit.

That we are only living, that we are consumers,

but that we are not soul beings.

[piano music]

>> Kabbalah.

Jewish forms of mysticismand esotericism,

begin in the late Middle Ages, especially

in the South of France andalso in those areas that

were a kind of crossroad betweenIslamic, Christian and Jewish

culture, especially in Spain.

Some authors in this periodconstruct a whole system

of occult philosophy, whichis a kind of synthesis effect.

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, for instance,

writes a famous work calledThe Occulta Philosophia, where

he tries to bringtogether all these ideas.

So, Christian Kabbalah,magic, astrology, alchemy.

They're trying to make a kind ofconsistent vision of the world

based on this occult wisdom.

Occultists were opposing some of what

they perceived to be kind of negative aspects

of both science and religion.

In terms of science, the biggest problem

was, of course, materialism, the idea

that the universe is constructedonly on the basis of matter.

That there is no space for spirituality,

for the spiritual aspects of reality.

When it came to religion thebiggest problem that was felt

was seen in the presence of dogmatism, the idea

that in fact, establishedchurches had sort of become

petrified in their message.

They had lost some of the living spirit that

was there when they had been created,

when they had been founded.

>> I don't want to say thatI have nothing with magic.

And that I have nothing with the occult.

There are very important magicians.

But for me that's not enough.

It was not so important to look at myself,

but to look to nature, to look to the cosmos

as a fantasticdevelopment of life waves.

And to see the universeas an infinite laboratory.

[horn music]

>> A little bit later, in the German speaking,

there are other currents thatare emerging, with Paracelsus,

who is starting off what couldbe considered a different kind

of tradition, a different kind of trend,

which later will take theform of Christian theosophy.

Especially after Jakob Boehme.

[horn music]

>> One of the great namesof alchemy and medicine is,

of course, Paracelsus, who wasborn in Switzerland and who was

known as TrismegistusGermanus, the German Hermes.

Because he really believed inthat Christian hermetic world

picture.

And also believed that you coulduse minerals to cure people,

to heal and perfect nature.

[chamber music]

>> This is one of our booksin the original binding,

dated 1512.

The Letters of Saint Paul.

This is a text of the Bible.

A Bible text is not a heretic text, of course.

But in the commentaries we find these pasted

in pieces of paper.

That makes it very interesting.

Because in old printed books,two copies are never the same.

That is very well illustrated.

As you can see, one copy is a paper copy.

And this is a copy printedon vellum, on parchment.

All over the commentariesthis text is censored.

If we look at the same page in this copy

we will find no censored passages.

So it depends where the book was used.

If certain ideas werethought to be heretic or not.

But the general point is that many of our authors

got into problems with the Church.

>> Men who were crucified,who were killed,

who were brought to the stake.

They represented an inner reality

and they said, no, no, no, to dictatorship,

that you have to obey.

Giordano Bruno, is one of the, for me,

the main philosophers of the 16th century.

He was burned at the stake in the year 1600

by an accusation of heresyby the Catholic Church.

But there was one book thatbrought him to the stake.

And it was this text, SpaccioDella Bestia Trionfante.

Anyway, it was a dialogue to break

the walls of the scholasticapproach of the Church,

that the Earth is in the center of the universe.

But he said, no.

That the universe is infinite.

So there is no center.

There is no center in the universe.

[string music]

In our library we have about 20publications, first editions,

by Giordano Bruno.

But this book was missing.

I was in Venice.

And I was there with a conference.

Save Venice.

Save Venice.

The water flood of Venice.

And I was there with somany international visitors,

but in a special forum with people

that were interested in books.

And the last evening, therewas an antiquarian bookseller

who brought some books aboutarchitecture in Venice.

And suddenly it came withme to my mind to ask,

do you have copies of Giordano Bruno?

And he said, yes, Mr. Ritman.

I have two.

I have de Umbris Idearum and Ihave the Spaccio Della Bestia

Trionfante.

And it was so nice that Brunowas taken prisoner in Venice.

I felt myself very close to Giordano Bruno.

And then to acquire a book in the city

where he was taken prisonerwas very moving for me.

And in Rome was the commemoration

of 400 years since the death of Giordano Bruno.

I was given a complimentby the Minister of Culture

to bring treasures to Rome of Giordano Bruno.

He was burned at the stakeat the flower market in Rome.

Campo de Fiori.

And now you are here in the kennel

of the flowers in Amsterdam.

My relationship withGiordano Bruno is very close.

[horn music]

I created a foundation.

I want to bring all these different opinions

and offer all these differentexperiences together.

This library is a library of information

about the inner network of the human search

for the destiny of life.

[fountain sound]

That new energy.

You can call it aquarius,or heavenly water,

that comes through the earth will clean up

many, many, many, many dark things,

or things that are crystallized et cetera.

Life is always on the move like a river that

floats through a landscape.

But it brings energy.

It brings the mineral life, vegetable life,

the geological life.

[piano music]

>> The meaning ofsomething that is inside,

something that is interior, remained of course.

And is still present today.

And in fact, most peoplewhen they are using the term

esotericism are probably usingit precisely with this meaning.

So referring to a religiousmessage that goes beyond what

is visible in the literal formof a sacred text, for instance.

You could see that there is a story in the Bible.

And you could wonder whetherthe story that is being told

is the only message that is there.

And ask yourself whether perhaps there

is a kind of hidden meaning, a hidden story.

[string music]

>> The Polyglot Bible wasprinted in Antwerp in 1573.

>> It's a Catholic Bible, theso-called polyglot edition

of the Bible.

That means that all thelanguages in which the Bible

manuscripts were originally found

are reproduced here together.

>> Hebraic, Chaldaic, Greek and Latin.

So four languages.

It is an example of bookillumination of the highest

quality that you can find in the world.

>> All the illustrations are hand colored.

When the book left the press, the illustrations

were just black and white.

I love rare books, old books,because the paper is still as

if it was produced yesterday.

It's paper that is made by hand.

But this old paper that will last for ages.

That makes me happy.

[string music]

>> On the one hand, it wasthought that it was possible

to demonstrate the existenceof a spiritual dimension.

And on the other hand, many esotericists

thought that it was possible to revive

a kind of religious spirit by applying

a different way of readingthe ancient texts, a sort

of metaphorical reading, an emblematic

reading of the texts.

[chamber music]

>> In the 19th century--

I think also, actually, in theosophy, it

was a very pregnant symbol.

The Renaissance of course wasa time of great open-mindedness

and intense curiosity about other religions,

about what moved other people.

And this is a wonderful image actually

in a manuscript of 1575.

And it shows the [inaudible],, known

as the 10 divine attributes.

In Hebrew Kabbalah, youhave keter, chochma, binah,

down to malchut.

And these are the channels through which

God can communicate with us.

As above, so below.

That's the hermetic phrase par excellence.

So we have these [inaudible],,these rotating wheels

that you can rotate.

And each [inaudible] has the same number

of [inaudible],, the 10 written on them.

And they were used to meditate upon.

>> Alchemy is the book of nature.

>> Alchemy, really, is an exciting subject.

Fascinating.

And it continues to fascinate today.

>> My fascination for alchemy isthat it is a process of change.

[piano music]

>> Alchemy.

It's fascinating because it'sto do with laboratory work.

But it's also to do withdiscovering nature and finding

out about the secrets of nature.

And it was believed that God had implanted

in nature the secrets forus, for man, to discover,

to find out.

And also to perfect nature.

>> And this is also very nice.

[speaking german]

[string music]

I have a principle that Isay, that the divine spark

is within you.

That divine spark has to become a flame.

A flame of awareness.

And what that flame should produce is fire.

Fire.

And that fire is your heritage.

So.

Spark.

Flame.

Fire.

And that fire, thatproduces this fifth element.

>> What the people atCERN are doing now is what

the scientists, the alchemistsin the 17th century were doing

also.

They were working in the laboratory.

And they were exploring nature.

>> You see an interior of an alchemist.

To pray, an oratorium, andto work, a laboratorium.

And that is from Khunrath.

>> Heinrich Khunrath, a Germanalchemist, a physician also,

is another very well-knownengraving called The Laboratory

and the Oratory.

And here you have Khunrath himself.

He's meditating.

He's freeing his mind before hecan perform the alchemical work

in the laboratory.

So you have the two--

the oratory and the laboratoryactually on the same level.

There is no hierarchy.

That performing alchemy and praying to God

are on the same level is reallya very astute observation.

>> I was always interestedin the laboratory of nature,

the laboratory of the universe,and the laboratory of the man

as a microcosm.

>> It's that sort of connectionthat's really fascinating.

That between the work in thelaboratory and the bigger

picture.

The idea of man as a microcosm,who by exploring nature,

can discover the secretsthat God implanted in nature

for the perfection of mankind.

>> So many esotericists at thetime thought that esotericism

could give an answer tothat problem and could solve

the conflict that existedbetween science and religion.

So by constructing the kind of common ground,

common fields like a bridge between the two.

>> This is the Atalantafugiens of Michael Maier.

There is 50 illustrations and it has

to do with text, with music and emblems.

So it's an emblematic book.

And it is the main work of Michael Maier.

That brings me to the story in Paris.

With my private plane I flew to Paris.

Then I met an antiquarianbook dealer of Amsterdam.

He wanted to take possession of the books

and to sell them to me afterwards.

Then he came to me.

He said, Joost, can we speak together?

And I said, no.

I come here for a specialreason, to buy books.

So there is for me no need to speak.

We will meet in auction.

There are some major auctions.

And there you have to fight.

You have to be prepared thatyou have to pay the price.

And you never know the price.

They spoke about the night of the alchemist.

People who came theretogether to get the recipe

for gold making.

So the people who are interestedin the original writings

were coming together and were fighting.

In the second half of the last century,

many very rare books and manuscripts

came to the book market.

And now that period is over.

So you can really say that I took

the opportunity from the early 60s, and now

more than 50 years later, tomake this library complete.

I bought at that auction one third

of all the available texts.

[slow music]

This is a priceless book.

[chanting music]

In the mystery of alchemy,here, he's a farmer.

He is giving the seed to the land.

But these are not normal seeds.

They are gold seeds.

The real alchemist brings the seeds

of gold making to the earth.

There is a seed.

And you have to put that in theinner center of your awareness.

That seed.

And at that moment that you havewent through the experience,

you see that that seed startsto grow and to flourish

in a different dimension.

[chanting music]

And here is a circle.

And then a square.

And then a triangle.

And out of the circlethe square and a triangle

compose a man and a woman.

And there you have the two elements in alchemy.

The male and the female come together

to create the stone of [inaudible]..

[chanting music]

[horn music]

The library is a daily journal of 5,000 years

of human research intothe field of spirituality

and into the field of the unexpected.

[horn music]

In alchemy they speak about three principles.

About silver that is related to the Sun,

mercury that is related to the Moon,

and salt is related to matter.

[classical music]

>> The engravings that theycontain have been produced

in the same house.

It was the engraver Miriam,who was working in Oppenheim.

Atalanta fugiens.

That's in fact a multimediabooklet, I would say,

that makes alchemy interestingto a broader audience.

There have also been moments.

For example, a very beautifulhand-colored edition

of the Atlanta fugiens was offered to him.

And a colleague and friend of his

said, OK, Joost, you have so much.

Please let me buy this one.

And he's still sorry that at that moment

he didn't go for it.

[classical music]

>> Mysticism is the book ofthe knowledge of the heart.

The knowledge of the heart goes deeper

than the awareness of the eyes.

>> Also Christian theosophyis very important,

which has its roots inthe 17th century already.

And even earlier withParacelsus and then later

with Jakob Boehme.

>> And for me, the most preciousbook in mysticism is the Aurora

of Jakob Boehme.

>> In the case of Jakob Boehmeit's a mystic experience.

>> This is the Aurora.

A new momentum.

An Aurora for the awareness of humanity.

And Jakob Boehme--

>> --was not a learned person.

He had a vision.

He had a visionary mind.

And he felt he should write about it.

>> These new moments that has come.

The planet Earth.

Here you see the zodiac.

And here, suddenly, a completelynew element is coming.

>> If you see an image likethis in the favorite book

of my father, you're notimmediately able to explain.

You are able to grasp the meaning somehow.

It gives you some sensation of,wow, this is really special.

>> The root, or mother, of philosophy,

astrology and theology.

So this is also a fantastic present.

And I could say that was the spark that became

a flame in my collector's life.

That was the present when I was 23 years old.

That's now more than 50 years ago.

That I got from my mother.

And this is one of theearly copies of the library.

It's what you call now whatare now the first momentums,

the first books.

So this, perhaps, was the first book

that came to the collection.

[classical music]

>> I do discoveries all the time.

If you look at this bookletby Johann Gichtel, a follower

of Jakob Boehme, it's a short introduction

about the three principlesand the worlds within man.

He's talking about worlds in men.

So there is a world of darkness inside us.

[ominous music]

That fascination that Ipersonally have always had

is the fascination for the imagery of the library.

Of course, I've grown up in the world of ideas.

A lot of the content ofthese books is visionary.

[classical music]

So what's happening is the complete works

of Jakob Boehme have beentranslated and put into print.

And what you see--

that there is again an artist who

feels compelled to visualize.

Here is our Sun.

And here's the Moon.

And here's the Earth.

So there you have alreadya macrocosmic reality.

The abstract world of the microcosm

and the way the macrocosmand the defined world

unfolds itself and becomesvisible in the cosmos.

[piano music]

This is Jakob Boehme'sexplanation of the human being,

the androgenic human being.

The human being has many instruments

to understand his place in creation.

He uses his senses.

He uses his reason.

And he has even got an astral mind.

So he's able to understandabstract principles.

[piano music]

Our eyes open up andthen we see what's there.

This is the symbol for the holy trinity

with the fiat in the end andalso probably in the beginning.

[inaudible]

[piano music]

[opera singing]

>> That's the Book of Wonders.

Wonderboeck.

Wunderbuch.

[opera singing]

Sofia, the mother of wisdom.

And here you see that she conquered the snake.

[classical music]

>> At the beginning of the 17thcentury we have the outbreak

of the 30 year war, whichis going to change, really,

Europe, which is going tohave very serious consequences

politically and historically.

In the historical climate rightbefore the outbreak of this war

it's that Rosicrucianism begins.

>> It started with my fatherjust knocking on the door

of an antiquarian bookseller, asking,

I want to buy the Fama Fraternitatis.

He started to laugh and said,OK, I'm looking for that

all my life as well.

So what do you think?

>> It's a German affair so to speak.

Because it originated in Tubingen in 1614,

where the first Rosicrucianmanifesto was written,

actually.

Fama Fraternitatis, the call of the brotherhood.

And it was a very small pamphlet which

called on all the learned heads of Europe

to achieve a reformation,a worldwide reformation,

of science, religion and really of everything.

And making man realize he is the microcosm.

>> The human being as a microcosm is in fact

their medicine to a societythat has lost its religious

orientation.

>> Rosicrucianism is in a waythe chain of representatives

who saw the contact betweenthe heart, the mind and nature.

>> The Rosicrucians were followers of Paracelsus.

Paracelsus is actually one ofthe only people in the Fama

Fraternitatis who is mentioned by name.

The people behind the Fama Fraternitatis

were dedicated physicians.

They were Paracelsians.

And they produced this pamphletto inspire people to bring

about a real reformation.

>> The manifestos are only threebooks, some hundreds of pages.

>> The Fama Fraternitatisin that sense is also a very

ethical little pamphlet.

It was followed by the ConfessioFraternitatis and the Chymische

Hochzeit.

And these three pamphlets together

are called the Rosicrucian Manifestos.

And they are really the source of a great furor

in German society on the eve of the 30 Years War.

>> In the very first lines ofFama Fraternitatis, it is said,

now, after all we've learnedand all gifts and grace that God

has bestowed on us, it's nowtime to understand why we are

a microcosm.

>> It's a wonderful story,that of Christian Rosenkreuz,

who travels to the Orient, whocollects all kinds of magical

alchemical, Kabbalistic knowledge.

He takes it with him back to Europe

and presents it to the learned heads of Europe,

who don't want to know.

>> There are traditions relatedto alchemy, to astrology,

and also very much to magic thatare still present in the Middle

Ages, and that are being keptalive in the territories that

are controlled by the Arabs.

>> On his journeys, Christian Rosenkreuz,

the protagonist of the Fama Fraternitatis,

also visited Fez, the city in Morocco.

And it's been establishedrecently that the rules

of the brotherhood-- four of them--

are actually based on thoseof a Sufi community in Fez.

So it's really remarkablethat it's presented

as a magical tale almost.

But of course, like magic, italso has its roots in reality.

And so what the Fama Fraternitatis urged

was a reformation.

Also, because they wereParacelsians and therefore

physicians, they also urged their colleagues

to cure people for free.

>> The Arabs played a keyrole in transmitting the Greek

culture by translating philosophical treatises

into Arabic and then from Arabic into Latin.

>> But if you look to thetraditional Rosicrucianism,

there are hundreds of thousandsof persons who are interested

to know about the Rosicrucianism.

>> This is a watercolor drawing.

It's the original illustration in the book

of Manly P. Hall, The SecretTeachings of All Ages.

And what we see here is a veryimportant moment in the Fama

Fraternitatis, where one of thebrothers, who is an architect,

he wants to improvesomething in the building.

And he sees a small nailin the wall and he thinks,

I should tear that out.

And when he does he finds a door.

And when they carefully takeeverything away and open

the door they find the graveof Christian Rosenkreuz,

the founder of the Rosicrucian brotherhood,

their father-brother, as they call him.

And on his grave they find a copper plate.

This [? minitus ?] mundi, allthe knowledge and the secrets

of the Rosicrucians.

>> The man is a minitum mundi,a little world, a microcosm.

To come to the question, whatis the reason behind that?

>> During my lifetime I havemade the entire compendium

of all this knowledge to my grave.

That's a very mysterious sentence.

>> But the meaning of themanifesto is always the same

secret.

That it has to do with thetriangle of creativity.

You can call that art.

Research, you can call that science.

But then with an invisibleframework of reality.

And then religion.

And religion is only the task to bring things

together within in one scope.

[classical music]

>> We focused on the imagery ofbooks around the Rosicrucians.

Of people who were not Rosicrucians.

They were advocating their ideas.

Robert Fludd claimed that hehas written this encyclopedic

work, Utriusque Cosmi Maioris,the physical, metaphysical and

hyper-physical world,without having any notice

of the Rosicrucian manifestos.

Still, in all his telling, he's giving the same key

of the microcosmic man.

>> In the microcosm,that's for me the promise.

If you go through the process of experience

you can be in directconnection with the creator.

And with that you become a co-creator.

And that is, for me, the message of my library.

I'm only a co-creator.

We can produce nectarlike a bee to a bee hive.

And that nectar is the food for,I would say, human awareness.

>> A beautiful engravingof Robert Fludd also made

by Marian of the human mind.

Man has an inner awareness connected

to the world of the senses, tothe world of the imagination,

to define reality.

And there's also the world of memory.

>> The perfect man is aware thatlife in itself is not something

that you can put like a pictureor a painting within a frame.

There is no frame for life.

There is no limit to human existence.

>> There is one element thatconnects all these worlds.

And that's the human soul.

All the impressions that weobtain through our senses

also give us an image, a sensation.

We can connect all we seeand smell to our imagination.

But our imagination is also,again, a tool of the soul.

Because when we imagine us to be a bird,

as it is said in the Corpus Hermeticum,

we are already there, high in the sky.

And a human being, with his imagination,

can grasp some meaning ofbeing of the divine world.

And that's what is shown here.

So with our ratio, ourintellect and our spirit,

we can enter the divine world.

He says also, the divine worldis in constant interaction

with the whole world.

But also with the human mind.

So it works both ways.

Michelspacher was also aware ofthe manifestoes and in context

with people in this circle.

This has also been designed by Marian.

[guitar music]

>> They follow thetradition of human research.

So hermeticism goes back to 5,000 years ago.

Alchemy goes back to 3,000 years ago.

The mysticism is related to Christianity,

to put Christ in the center.

You can also mention Kabbalah,the Jewish tradition.

It's so very important.

But Rosicrucianism combinesall these different flows.

They are the fruit of, I would say,

5,000 years of spiritualexploration of the human mind.

>> Daniel Mogling wrote a bookthat's called The Wisdom Mirror

of the Rosicrucians.

And then he writes in his text, you

know about this mysteriousbrotherhood of the Rose Cross

that everybody's asking for.

If you want to know what themeaning of the Rosicrucian

message is, study this engraving closely.

All you need to know aboutRosicrucians is there.

I cannot say more.

Because you know what happens.

When you say something, theyare twisting your words.

So I cannot say more.

But, one thing.

Once you understand whyman is called a microcosm,

you will encounter a Rosicrucian maybe

in your direct neighborhood.

So what he is saying there,that the imagery is a tool that

is more accurate and pure than any words

he could express in his book.

>> This is a copy of the [inaudible]..

It was printed in the late 18th century.

But it returns to the sourcesof the 16th and 17th centuries.

[chanting music]

>> It's an image of the heavenlyand terrestrial [? eva, ?]

the mother of all creaturesin heaven and on Earth.

Lady Sophia, or the Virgin Sophia.

From her wisdom the divinecomes into manifestation

because of our consciousness.

Because we become aware of theconnection between the divine

and the cosmos and thehuman being as the creature.

>> This for instance is abeautiful image from Daniel

Mogling's Speculum Rhodostauroticum.

The Mirror for the Rosuicrucians.

And it's called [inaudible].

The [inaudible] of wisdom.

>> A man.

And he's connected with mineral,vegetable and biological life.

So the microcosmos and nature itself.

[chanting music]

>> The human beingconnects eternity and time.

The human being is again displayed

as an instrument, aninstrument of the divine fiat.

In the middle you haveman, who is the microcosm.

And the Latin word tibi, for you, which means,

we are the microcosm and thatis God's gift to the world.

We as men, as people, we rely on our five senses.

But we also have knowledge of God.

Inner knowledge.

The Corpus Hermeticum also says it.

That is why man is themost gifted of creatures.

Because he has the use ofhis five senses but also he

has gnosis.

He can achieve a knowledge of God.

And that is what this image is also all about.

Omnia [inaudible].

Everything from the one.

Omnia ad unum.

Everything returns in the one.

>> Everything through the unitybrings everything to the unity.

So here you have the creator.

You have the nature.

And here you have the waves of life.

And everything comestogether in the microcosmos.

[chanting music]

>> The phenomenon ofwestern esotericism can be

characterized by the fact thatin most historical periods it

seems to be at odds withmainstream religious thinking.

And then later, especially starting

with the scientificrevolution and with the period

of the Enlightenment, alsowith scientific and rational

thinking.

>> The library is a telescopeof visions of thousands

of persons.

But my life itself, myinner life, is a microscope.

>> Perhaps an author you might not expect to find

on the shelves of thislibrary, which is a hermetic,

alchemical, magical library, is Spinoza.

And but he is here.

This is an edition of oneof his most famous works,

the Tractatus Theologico Politicus.

It's an amazing work in itself.

It's also a very special edition.

As you can see it wassupposedly printed in Hamburg.

But it wasn't printed in Hamburg at all.

It was printed in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam in the 17th century was a great city

for freedom of expression,freedom of the press.

Spinoza was very well aware of the fact

that this was a very explosive work.

It's in Latin.

It's international, Latinbeing the Lingua Franca.

And we have a letter fromSpinoza to a friend of his.

And he says, don'tpublish the work in Dutch

because the ministers, the preachers,

are already up in arms against me.

And if this work becomes available in Dutch

I will have no end of trouble.

So the Dutch translation of the Tractatus

was only published in 1693when Spinoza was long dead.

[classical music]

>> This kind of conflictualrelationship should not be

overemphasized in thesense that, in many cases,

you see that authors aretrying to find a compromise.

And if we move a little bitlater, to the 18th century,

we encounter another veryimportant phenomenon,

which is modern Freemasonry.

And that's very importantbecause although we already

see this model earlier on with the beginning

of Rosicrucianism-- so, theidea that in fact, esotericists

don't work alone.

That, in fact, they should be organized

in some sort of brotherhood,some sort of fraternity kind

of organization.

[soft music]

But with Rosicrucianism it'snot clear whether this was just

a project--

something that was on paper--or whether such an organization

really existed.

Well, with Freemasonry, we havea real, concrete organization

that is being created.

So people getting together and engaging

in all sorts of communal activities and rituals

and so on.

>> We had famous visitors in the past.

Umberto Eco, who is also agreat collector of hermetic

and alchemical works.

Last year we had Dan Brown, who was totally

amazed by this collection because he

has written so many novelsabout Rosicrucians, Freemasons.

So he was bowled over byhis visit to the library.

[classical music]

>> One should not think thatFreemasonry is esoteric,

per se, because Freemasonryin fact is a very complex

phenomenon.

And there are traditions in Freemasonry

that are more open toesotericism, to spirituality,

and other traditions that perhaps

prefer to have a kind of more rational approach

to spirituality.

[opera singing]

>> The microcosmos is a sparkof the Big Bang in the Big Bang.

It's the god's particle in creation.

And I carry that god's particleas a treasure in my life.

[piano music]

>> The library is so specialbecause it's a private library

but it's open to the public.

And it has on the shelves authors

who wanted to unite peopleand bring them together.

Who didn't want division.

Who didn't want religious strife.

Who wanted people to acknowledge, to realize,

that they are a mirror of nature,

that they are the microcosm.

That great hermeticsentence-- as above, so below.

>> Man is a mirror of light.

He has a task of connection.

So to receive that energy.

>> The 18th century, of course, is also the Age

of the Enlightenment, which should be the age

of rationality.

It insists on the importance of reason

and the importance of science.

It sees at the same time the development

of another esoteric current which

also makes a reference to thesymbol of the light, which

is called illuminism.

>> There is a directenergy floating throughout

the universe.

The simple example, light.

Light in itself is invisible.

But at the moment that itcomes into contact with matter

it becomes color and becomes life.

And we can say the Sun is the origin of light.

But light in itself, of the Sun, is invisible.

>> Illuminism lays great emphasis on the idea

of mystical knowledge.

A based mystical approach tonature and to the mysteries

of the universe, which is perhaps

the kind of flip side of the Enlightenment.

>> My father decided he wantedto make his private collection

publicly accessible in '84.

He had the vision to immediately say, OK.

When we open up this collection,which is in fact a knowledge

field, it should beaccessed in a scholarly way.

>> I built my library.

I built the Research Institute.

I was everywhere togetherwith my staff in exhibitions.

I published many books about this field.

And now I want to come to acertain point that we say,

let us share the future.

>> We want to build a globalhermetic circle of people who

are genuinely interested.

We started the project Hermetically Open

to share every activity and aspect

that we do with the collectionin exhibitions and projects

and the Ritman Institute and our publishing

house in the Pelikaan.

>> Simple.

Brief.

Clear.

Transparent.

Not to come with answersthat people don't understand.

>> Hermetically Open to allhas in fact, after a few years,

become our main strategy as alibrary because we have quite

an elaborate scholarly context we have established over

the years.

And we see that it'simportant that we open up

all this knowledge, all this expertise,

to a broader audience.

And not only share our collection

but also share our expertise in this way.

>> I always saw the totalfield in front of me.

And then the books came.

The field of magnetism, of energy.

[piano music]

>> At the end of the 18thcentury we have the current

of animal magnetism with Franz Anton Mesmer.

And another importantcurrent is Swedenborgianism,

based on the teachings of the Swedish visionary

and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg.

These two currents combined--

Swedenborgianism and animal magnetism,

or Mesmerism as it is sometimes called--

form a sort of backboneto all later esotericism.

>> I went to all the differentfour corners of the world.

It's all the same.

But it comes together in one awareness.

The East, the West, the North and the South.

They will meet in a new consensus of questions.

Where do I come from?

Why am I here?

And what is the destiny of life?

>> In the 19th century we have Spiritualism,

which really begins in America.

The classical date that ismentioned for the beginnings

of this movement is 1848.

The very basic idea that it ispossible to have communication

with the spirits of the dead.

So that it is possible to talk to them,

to receive messages from them, and therefore

to know about what is goingto happen to us when we die.

Most of the messages that are being received

through Spiritualism are in factrelated to the destiny of man

after death.

>> The soul is the propertyof the microcosmos.

The human presence is, I would say, a traveler

in time and space.

So I can't tell you how many times

I came here again and again.

The transmigration of souls.

I would give myself as an example.

My soul comes back at themoment that I'm here again.

[piano music]

>> We tried to collect thefirst editions of, for instance,

Madame Blavatsky's works.

[piano music]

>> Spiritualism is notvery much based on the idea

of a tradition.

It's more based on theidea of direct experience.

You get together with agroup of sympathetic persons.

And then you engage in whatis usually called a seance.

With the help of a medium--

so, a person with the particular skills--

you enter in contact withthe spirits of dead people.

It is that simple.

So you don't need to have aparticular tradition for that.

[piano music]

Occultism really begins aroundthe same time as spiritualism,

the 19th century.

There is a kind of hidden spiritual wisdom

that has been handed down by aparticular series of masters,

of adepts, of initiates, that are going to keep

alive the flame of this wisdom.

In this sense it is similarto older forms of esotericism.

>> I warn everybody that itis not a way of speculation.

It is very natural.

And I can say this to you.

A mystic and hermetic person, an alchemist,

is far more concretethan the so-called called

mystics, alchemists, spiritists, occultists.

They only produce clouds.

And what I want to produce is anopen air that you see the Sun.

[inaudible] that you see the reality.

That you see the plants, the animals.

That you see the people around you.

And you see them not so much asthat they think that they are.

But that you see them with the possibilities.

And that you inspire people.

Then I'm no longer a mystic, praying,

sitting in inner, deep meditation.

No.

I'm walking the streets.

I shake hands.

I embrace people with thereality of my example.

[piano music]

At the moment that you build a library,

it is an every day, everyweek, every month, every year--

it's an ongoing journey.

>> After the First WorldWar you have a new current--

Perennialism, or Traditionalism.

The main authors associated with this current

are Frenchmen, Rene Guenon.

But then there are other important names.

For instance, Ananda Coomaraswamy

or the Italian Julius Evola.

Now with Traditionalism we enterinto a bit more pessimistic,

late modern form of esotericism.

Traditionalism is based, among other things,

on the idea that in fact we areapproaching the end of times.

We should not trust so much the possibility

to gain new knowledge fromnew discoveries of science,

for instance.

But that everything has to be related

to a kind of primordial wisdom.

In ancient wisdom, everything that

has created distance fromthis primordial tradition

is intrinsically bad.

So all modernity, basically, is bad.

[string music]

>> The library in the fieldof hermetic philosophy is

for the first time broughttogether in the world.

I want it to be complete with this field.

Complete.

It took me about 50 years to be complete.

And I can say we have an unbelievable [inaudible]

in manuscripts and in [inaudible]

and also in modern prints.

The fascination of a collectoris that a library is never

really complete.

>> After the Second World Warwe have the emergence of other

currents.

For instance, neopaganism, especially

in the Anglo-American world, with the creation

of particular groupslike Wicca, for instance.

That is very important.

But then we have, especiallystarting from the 60s, also

other forms of esotericismthat start to develop.

For instance, the New Age.

The New Age has been perceivedby observers, by scholars,

sometimes, also as a kind of popularized form

of esotericism.

Perhaps a commercial aspect.

Some people think that it'sa kind of degeneration,

also, of esotericism.

You have the phenomenon of the bestseller--

what are in fact esotericideas, but to a very, very

large public.

[string music]

>> I love rare books becauseeach one of them is different,

whether it's the binding, the contents.

Someone has inscribed his thoughts in them.

>> You share the ownership withthe people who had these books

in their hands and gaveit to the next generation.

>> Owners have come and gone.

Each rare book is different.

It's a character of its own.

>> It's not a library thatwent from hand to hand to hand.

But with 30,000 books, they camefrom thousands of other owners.

But they were always kept as a treasure.

[classical music]

Look.

Look to the splendor of these books.

[classical music]

Why I am always using fireworksat the end of the year?

To say every moment, only on New Year's Eve,

the Big Bang comes back as a fireball.

[classical music]