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Liber XII · Hermeticism

Liber XII · Hermeticism · Chapter III: Correspondences

Robert Fludd: Macrocosm, Microcosm and the Rosicrucian Defence

Robert Fludd (1574–1637) and his History of the Two Worlds (1617–21): the engraved macrocosm and microcosm, his Rosicrucian apologies and debates with Kepler.

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Robert Fludd (1574–1637) was an English physician and Hermetic philosopher whose Utriusque cosmi historia ("History of the Two Worlds"), published in Oppenheim between 1617 and 1621, mapped the correspondences between the macrocosm of the universe and the microcosm of the human being in a series of celebrated engravings. A defender of the Rosicrucian manifestos and a follower of Paracelsus, he drew Kepler, Mersenne and Gassendi into public controversy. His images of the monochord of the world, the mirror of nature and the primal darkness remain among the most reproduced pictures in Western esotericism.

Life of Robert Fludd: Kent, Oxford and London§

Fludd was born in 1574 at Milgate House, near Bearsted in Kent, a son of Sir Thomas Fludd, a royal official who served as treasurer for the English forces in France and the Low Countries. He studied at St John's College, Oxford, taking his BA in 1596 and his MA in 1598. He then spent about six years travelling on the Continent, in France, Spain, Italy and Germany, supporting himself partly as a tutor in noble households, including, by his own account, that of the Guise family. During these years he encountered the medicine of Paracelsus and the Hermetic and Neoplatonic literature of the Renaissance.

Returning to England, he took his medical degrees at Oxford in 1605. His admission to the College of Physicians in London was delayed by repeated examinations and by complaints about his disdain for Galenic medicine and his manner; he became a Fellow in 1609 and held office in the College several times thereafter. He practised successfully in London, kept his own apothecary, and was known for a combination of conventional remedies and Paracelsian chemical medicines, prayer and attention to the patient's spirit. He died unmarried in London in 1637 and was buried at Bearsted.

Defending the Rosicrucians§

The Fama Fraternitatis (1614) and the Confessio Fraternitatis (1615) announced a secret brotherhood dedicated to the reform of knowledge, and provoked hundreds of responses across Europe. Fludd was among the most prominent supporters. In 1616 he published the Apologia compendiaria, a short defence of the fraternity against the attacks of the German physician and chemist Andreas Libavius, and in 1617 an expanded version, the Tractatus apologeticus.

Fludd praised the Rosicrucians' programme of a universal reformation founded on divine wisdom, true medicine and the study of nature, and he asked to be admitted to their company. He never claimed to be a member, and there is no evidence that the brotherhood existed as an organisation. His writings nonetheless associated him with Rosicrucianism in the eyes of contemporaries, and later Rosicrucian groups claimed him as one of their own. The wider movement is traced in Rosicrucianism: a complete guide.

The History of the Two Worlds: Structure and Aims§

Fludd's great work was printed by Johann Theodor de Bry, a Frankfurt engraver and publisher based at Oppenheim, who also published Michael Maier's emblem books. Its full title promises the "metaphysical, physical and technical history of both the greater and the lesser world". The first volume, on the macrocosm, appeared in 1617–18; the second, on the microcosm, appeared in parts between 1619 and 1621. Some engravings were probably drawn by Fludd himself and cut by craftsmen in the de Bry workshop, possibly including the young Matthäus Merian, though attributions vary.

The first volume opens with the creation of the world, interpreted through Genesis, Plato's Timaeus and the Hermetic Poimandres. It then turns to the "technical history" of the arts by which humans imitate nature: arithmetic, music, geometry, optics and perspective, painting, fortification, the art of motion and machines, timekeeping, cosmography, astrology and geomancy. The second volume treats the human being: the supernatural and natural dimensions of the microcosm, the anatomy of body and soul, and the arts of the microcosm, including prophecy, geomancy, the art of memory, astrology of nativities, physiognomy and palmistry.

The whole is governed by the principle summarised in the Hermetic maxim as above, so below: every part of the human being corresponds to a part of the universe, and both reflect the mind of God.

The Engravings: Picturing the Macrocosm and Microcosm§

Fludd's fame rests above all on the images. They translate complex doctrine into diagrams that combine geometry, cosmology and theology.

The Primal Darkness and the Creation of Light§

One plate shows simply a black square with the words Et sic in infinitum ("and so on to infinity") on each side, representing the formless darkness before creation. Following plates show light emerging from the darkness and the separation of the waters, a visual commentary on the opening of Genesis that echoes the Hermetic vision of light and darkness.

The Mirror of Nature and the Ape of Nature§

The plate known as the Integrae naturae speculum artisque imago ("Mirror of the whole of nature and image of art") shows the cosmos as a series of concentric circles: the divine realm, the angelic and empyrean heavens, the planetary spheres and the sublunary elements, with the minerals, plants and animals at the centre. A woman representing Nature is linked by a chain to God's hand above, and she in turn holds a chain attached to an ape, symbol of human art, which imitates nature on the earth below.

The Monochord and the Pyramids§

Fludd represented the cosmos as a monochord, a single-stringed instrument tuned by a divine hand, whose intervals correspond to the levels of creation from the earth to God. In other diagrams two interpenetrating pyramids, one of form or light descending from God and one of matter or darkness rising from the earth, meet in the sphere of the Sun, the place of equality between spirit and matter. These images express in geometric form the idea of a harmonic, graduated universe.

Controversies with Kepler, Mersenne and Gassendi§

Fludd's work attracted serious critics. In an appendix to his Harmonices mundi (1619), Johannes Kepler contrasted his own mathematical approach to cosmic harmony, grounded in measurement and astronomical data, with Fludd's symbolic diagrams, which he regarded as obscure and arbitrary. Fludd replied that Kepler grasped only the outer shadows of things while he sought their inner essence, and an exchange of pamphlets followed. Historians, notably Wolfgang Pauli in an essay of 1952, have treated the dispute as a symbolic encounter between two conceptions of knowledge.

The French Minim friar Marin Mersenne attacked Fludd in 1623 as a magician and heretic, and Pierre Gassendi wrote a detailed critique of his philosophy in 1630. Fludd also defended the "weapon-salve", an ointment said to heal a wound when applied to the weapon that caused it, against the English clergyman William Foster, explaining its supposed action through magnetic sympathy rather than demons. In his own experiments, for example with a weather-glass or thermometer, Fludd sought to demonstrate the action of divine light and darkness in nature. He was also one of the first to accept in print William Harvey's theory of the circulation of the blood, which he interpreted as a reflection of the circular motion of the heavens.

His late Mosaicall Philosophy, published in Latin in 1638 and in English in 1659, argued that true natural philosophy must be founded on Scripture rather than on Aristotle.

Fludd's Legacy in Esotericism and Scholarship§

In the generations after his death, mechanical philosophy displaced Fludd's world view, and he was remembered mainly as an example of what modern science had left behind. His books nonetheless remained treasured by alchemists, Rosicrucians and Freemasons, and his engravings were reprinted and imitated. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries occultists rediscovered him as a master of correspondences and Christian Hermetic Qabalah, and his images became standard illustrations of Hermetic cosmology.

Modern scholarship began with studies by Allen Debus on the Paracelsian chemical philosophy, Frances Yates's work on the Rosicrucians and William Huffman's intellectual biography, and Joscelyn Godwin's collection of his engravings made the images widely known. Fludd is now studied as an important representative of early modern Christian Hermeticism and of the Paracelsian tradition in medicine.

Frequently asked questions§

Who was Robert Fludd?§

Robert Fludd (1574–1637) was an English physician, Paracelsian and Hermetic philosopher who defended the Rosicrucians and wrote the illustrated History of the Two Worlds on the correspondence between the universe and the human being.

What is the Utriusque cosmi historia?§

It is Fludd's encyclopaedic work on the "two worlds", the macrocosm and the microcosm, published at Oppenheim between 1617 and 1621. It covers creation, cosmology, the arts and sciences, and the human body and soul, and is famous for its engravings.

Was Robert Fludd a Rosicrucian?§

He wrote two defences of the Rosicrucian brotherhood and asked to join it, but he never claimed to be a member, and there is no evidence that an organised brotherhood existed at the time.

Why did Kepler criticise Fludd?§

Kepler believed that cosmic harmony must be demonstrated through mathematics and observation. He considered Fludd's symbolic diagrams arbitrary and unscientific, and the dispute became a classic example of the parting of science and esoteric cosmology.

Sources and further reading§