The Manufacture of Mozart

[Musicology]

I will see what I can do. Certainly the connections the Mozart's had in England during their visit to London lead us to the inescapable conclusion that there was a cultural network within the fraternities of that time. Cornelys/Casanova etc. is only one obvious example. The Cornelys house literally next door to the site of the Venetian ambassador. (Cornelys having arrived from Holland with a close association with Casanova years before in Holland). In fact, the year before Cornelys took over the running of Carlisle House it had been leased to two shipping magistrates of the Dutch East India company. Who had come to form an agreement with the British government on merchant fleets etc. The government of Walpole (Prime Minister) was literally created by the fraternities of that time. Leading figures within that government play a major part in the Mozart story. Including the King of England and the Prince of Wales. And then of course the extensive correspondence of Walpole with diplomats such as Horatio Mann in Italy. etc etc. Known early Freemasons. The British diplomats at Florence during the early 18th century are others. The career of Lord Cowper in particular in Florence and his role in opera generally and the fact the British lived in great numbers in Florence during these early decades of the 18th century. Cowper eventually becoming a Baron of the Holy Roman Empire. etc etc.

You are right about dogmas. But it's best to avoid them. We agree.

/

You almost saved "it" but the subject is far from closed!

And when you do provide serious evidence of pre 1730's Freemasonry presence in Florence, I'll reconsider it, even if it is still irrelevant to this thread. People adjust with time, you see, often changing sides or even dogmas.

Cheers.

[yanni]

Is this what you consider evidence of "pre 1730's Freemasonry presence in Florence"?

And-friendly advise-do try puting a break on your tendency to draw "inescapable conclusions" at this stage.

Remember Nissens "Barbary" (but do bless us with your opinion on my previous: "How trustworthy are the already disputed "Nissen & Constanze" data concerning in particular Mozart performing privately for "Gluck", 1782 in Vienna?")!


Cheers.

I will see what I can do. Certainly the connections the Mozart's had in England during their visit to London lead us to the inescapable conclusion that there was a cultural network within the fraternities of that time. Cornelys/Casanova etc. is only one obvious example. The Cornelys house literally next door to the site of the Venetian ambassador. (Cornelys having arrived from Holland with a close association with Casanova years before in Holland). In fact, the year before Cornelys took over the running of Carlisle House it had been leased to two shipping magistrates of the Dutch East India company. Who had come to form an agreement with the British government on merchant fleets etc. The government of Walpole (Prime Minister) was literally created by the fraternities of that time. Leading figures within that government play a major part in the Mozart story. Including the King of England and the Prince of Wales. And then of course the extensive correspondence of Walpole with diplomats such as Horatio Mann in Italy. etc etc. Known early Freemasons. The British diplomats at Florence during the early 18th century are others. The career of Lord Cowper in particular in Florence and his role in opera generally and the fact the British lived in great numbers in Florence during these early decades of the 18th century. Cowper eventually becoming a Baron of the Holy Roman Empire. etc etc.

You are right about dogmas. But it's best to avoid them. We agree.

/

[Musicology]

It is a list of things anyone who wishes to examine the subject can read for themselves. Actually I've used the term 'inescapable conclusion' only once in this entire correspondence. In reference to the network who assisted Mozart and his father during their time in England.

You ask about Nissen/Constanze's reference to Gluck in Vienna 1782. In my view Constanze Mozart's stories are often false. There are dozens of examples. A classic case is the 'Requiem' where she wrote (and so did her 'mentor' Abbe Maximilian Stadler) that the Requiem was 'so near to completion at the time of Mozart's death that any copyist could have completed it'. This story was repeated (virtually word for word) by Stadler himself in his 'Authenticity of the Requiem' of 1825. And why was this said by Stadler ? It was because musicologists such as Gottfried Weber had published evidence the year before in a music journal (Caelicia) that the Requiem is also not by Mozart. Stories surrounding its rehearsal from Mozart's death bed were also later inventions. So too the 'grey messenger' and other fairy tales.

So, no, the many falsifications of Constanze Mozart/Nissen (added to those we find in Niemetsheck's 'biography') are typical of what was widely taught and believed on Mozart. These two early 'biographies' together with much of the contents of the Nekrology contain much of the fairy story we know today. Gluck's career is, for sure, massively exaggerated also. But this we already agree about.

Rgds

Is this what you consider evidence of "pre 1730's Freemasonry presence in Florence"?

And-friendly advise-do try puting a break on your tendency to draw "inescapable conclusions" at this stage.

Remember Nissens "Barbary" (but do bless us with your opinion on my previous: "How trustworthy are the already disputed "Nissen & Constanze" data concerning in particular Mozart performing privately for "Gluck", 1782 in Vienna?")!


Cheers.

[yanni]

Remind me please when I agreed that "Gluck's carreer was highly exaggerated" because I neither recall, nor do I have the knowledge to judge "Gluck's" music myself, I do know however he is still considered as father of modern opera and have already identified him as "The phantom of the opera".

Perhaps his "other commitments" while composing prevented him from distinguishing himself further, "like Mozart did" as we'll soon see!

Cheers!

[Musicology]

Gluck's dubious origins in Bohemia and his official career involve much invention and exaggeration. Even in Paris. The truth is Gluck's principal patron was Lobkowitz, intimately associated (and his son) with the invention of Mozart. The same Lobkowitz who was a close associate of Cagliostro and others. The same Lobkowitz who was a close associate of Goethe. And with Beethoven. Cultural inventions were as real then as those we see today.

And how much of 'Gluck's' music is noteworthy today ? Very little.

Remind me please when I agreed that "Gluck's carreer was highly exaggerated" because I neither recall, nor do I have the knowledge to judge "Gluck's" music myself, I do know however he is still considered as father of modern opera and have already identified him as "The phantom of the opera".

Perhaps his "other commitments" while composing prevented him from distinguishing himself further, "like Mozart did" as we'll soon see!

Cheers!

[Musicology]

Cantata 84
Aria

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM4ED...om=PL&index=30

[Musicology]

Antonio Vivaldi
Concerto for 2 Violins in G Minor
RV 578

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkU4F27WahA

Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713)
Concerto grosso in D major Op. 6 No. 1
3. Largo 4. Allegro 5. Allegro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vlORhf-7_M

[yanni]

You neither answered my question re my ever agreeing on your previous views ("the highly exaggerated career of Gluck") nor do you now prove them through his relations with Lobkowitz or even Cagliostro.

Because of his diplomatic duties, often undercover, "Gluck" had to associate himself with all sorts.

Also

You say previously that "Constanze stories are often false", which is an undestatement: Nothing written by them (Nissen included) is trustworthy, ie everything written on genius Mozart based on their data is Mozart's view of things , or the product of later,1826-1829, "improvenents", ie all is a great fake. Because Nissen was Mozart, as we'll soon see.

At this point a comment must be made re Mozart's above first biographers and Feurstein* :

No self respecting author, but a fool only, could fail to explain the mystery between Mozart's disasterous performance in Paris, 1778, where he was supposed to learn music from Bagge, joining his amateurs (already covered in previous) and his alleged stellar success in Vienna, July 1782 The Abduction, ie just four years later.

Before sending the biographers lot back to their foolsparadise however, something to their defense:

Nissen died 1826, Feyerstein "did his bit" the next couple of years and the "work" was published 1829 (see relative comments by Angermüller, Stafford and Halliwell calling the biography all sorts of names at Wikipedia)

"Gluck" had died 1819 in his Monrepos in Vyborg, Karelia (suggesting the couple delayed publishing until then) but "Gluck's" ' french relatives had already earlier on reassumed positions of authority in France where the production of fictionary literary works on Saint-Germain-based-characters soon started thereafter.

IE

Mozart's biographic group were constrained while composing their "Mozart myth", wishing neither to reveal nor to offend "Gluck" and his aliases true identity, and were propably financed for the task as well.

Hence the flop!

The question "why did Gluck supply Mozart with his music archive in the first place?" remains open of course but, certainly, a part of the answer is as above: His identity had to remain secret.

Cheers.

* a relative of Dresden physician Dr Johann Feuerstein diagnosed consumption as the cause of Mozart's death perhaps?

Gluck's dubious origins in Bohemia and his official career involve much invention and exaggeration. Even in Paris. The truth is Gluck's principal patron was Lobkowitz, intimately associated (and his son) with the invention of Mozart. The same Lobkowitz who was a close associate of Cagliostro and others. The same Lobkowitz who was a close associate of Goethe. And with Beethoven. Cultural inventions were as real then as those we see today.

And how much of 'Gluck's' music is noteworthy today ? Very little.

[Musicology]

Yanni,

You should write a book about Gluck. It seems (to me anyway) your way of presenting things lacks any structure. We are to accept, on your say so, that Gluck was a diplomat. That Nissen (Constanze's second husband) was Mozart himself. And so it goes on. I can only suggest you spend time showing us these things. With real evidence.

I have spent some time on these things. Let's take the Nissen theory. Just that. I've corresponded with its inventor. Several times. An American. Asking him to do the basic research that would tend to confirm his theory. Things like, for example, producing some examples of Nissen's handwriting. The Nissen theory has some good points, for sure. And I've said so in the past. After all, what chance is there for a Danish diplomat to be renting a room in Vienna with the widow of Mozart ? It's absurd. Of course it is.

But the absurdity of the story is not proof of an alternative. It is pefectly clear Nissen had links with Regensburg earlier in his career. As did Mozart. It is clear too he is some way involved in the manufacture of Mozart. As were various diplomats (including the British Ambassador in Vienna). But it is not clear (at least to me) that Nissen was Mozart himself. Still, I am sure those who believe differently will provide the much needed evidence that would make their theory credible.

We should not, however, lose sight of the fact that on the basic issue we are agreed. Mozart's musical career was manufactured. And since this, from a musical point of view, is my focus, I hope to see from you and from others more on Nissen. A man who knew virtually nothing of music and whose portrait bears more than a striking resemblance to Mozart. But which, to date, lacks more than circumstantial evidence.

I understand from one source the word 'Nissen' means 'elf' or mythical creature in Danish. The idea itself is interesting.

Virtually none of the works of Gluck are today performed or regarded as great musical value. Which is why I mentioned the fact before.

I, like most people, have a finite capacity to entertain ideas which never seem to result in conclusion. It remains my view that in a world of aliases the onus is on you to give us the hard information that links them all, and this first of all. Since the human mind does not find attraction in unsubstantiated speculations and is not convinced by one line 'proofs'. The basic structure must be presented. On which complexities are explained. But, without that, we can spend our lives going round and round in circles. This I wish to avoid.

I look forward to your 'proof' that Nissen was none other than W.A. Mozart. For myself, I find it to be an interesting idea that lacks hard evidence. Designed to 'muddy the water'. To throw dust in our eyes on the actual fact that this music exists and that its origins had nothing to do with either Nissen or Mozart. Nissen was a propagandist. Of this there is no doubt. But, whether or not he was Mozart himself, well, that is for others to show. I have examined it and found that it lacks basic evidence.

Does the Mozart story stand up to close examination ? No, it does not. That is fact number 1. Does a body of music attributed to him exist ? Yes, it does. And therefore you will understand that my priority is to stay with those issues and not to entertain ideas which, so far, have done little to explain how that music came in to being.

Regards


//

You neither answered my question re my ever agreeing on your previous views ("the highly exaggerated career of Gluck") nor do you now prove them through his relations with Lobkowitz or even Cagliostro.

Because of his diplomatic duties, often undercover, "Gluck" had to associate himself with all sorts.

Also

You say previously that "Constanze stories are often false", which is an undestatement: Nothing written by them (Nissen included) is trustworthy, ie everything written on genius Mozart based on their data is Mozart's view of things , or the product of later,1826-1829, "improvenents", ie all is a great fake. Because Nissen was Mozart, as we'll soon see.

At this point a comment must be made re Mozart's above first biographers and Feurstein* :

No self respecting author, but a fool only, could fail to explain the mystery between Mozart's disasterous performance in Paris, 1778, where he was supposed to learn music from Bagge, joining his amateurs (already covered in previous) and his alleged stellar success in Vienna, July 1782 The Abduction, ie just four years later.

Before sending the biographers lot back to their foolsparadise however, something to their defense:

Nissen died 1826, Feyerstein "did his bit" the next couple of years and the "work" was published 1829 (see relative comments by Angermüller, Stafford and Halliwell calling the biography all sorts of names at Wikipedia)

"Gluck" had died 1819 in his Monrepos in Vyborg, Karelia (suggesting the couple delayed publishing until then) but "Gluck's" ' french relatives had already earlier on reassumed positions of authority in France where the production of fictionary literary works on Saint-Germain-based-characters soon started thereafter.

IE

Mozart's biographic group were constrained while composing their "Mozart myth", wishing neither to reveal nor to offend "Gluck" and his aliases true identity, and were propably financed for the task as well.

Hence the flop!

The question "why did Gluck supply Mozart with his music archive in the first place?" remains open of course but, certainly, a part of the answer is as above: His identity had to remain secret.

Cheers.

* a relative of Dresden physician Dr Johann Feuerstein diagnosed consumption as the cause of Mozart's death perhaps?

[Musicology]

The Wonderful

Cantata 104
Opening


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyCTY...om=PL&index=60

[Musicology]

One of the most inspired moments in all of music. You will note how, from about 1' 57'' into this first movement the music shifts up beyond the norm. Even for Bach. Just the work of a little German chapelmaster perhaps ? Probably not. Something greater. How marvellous ! Miraculous, even.


Cantata 104
Opening


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyCTY...om=PL&index=60[/QUOTE]

[Musicology]

Yanni,

On the origins of Freemasonry in England from Venice - part of an article that appeared in 'American Almanac' by Donald Phau (1994 Vol. VIII, No. 17 and No. 18). ) -

In 1527, Henry VIII of England resolved to divorce his wife. His concern was predominantly dynastic. The Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon, his queen of 18 years, had failed to produce a male heir, after suffering several miscarriages and losing two sons in the early stages of infancy. The single surviving Tudor child, Princess Mary, was not considered by her father or his advisers to be a suitable candidate to rule England after Henry's death.
The divorce and remarriage of a Catholic king was infrequent, but certainly not unheard of. Annulments of royal marriages for dynastic and political reasons were even more common. Around 1450, the pope had even granted Henry VI of Castile a dispensation to marry a second wife, while still married to his first wife, who had borne no royal heir ! At the outset of his negotiations with the Vatican, Henry had every reason to expect that, in time, his request would be granted.

Instead, the case of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII of England was to become the most famous divorce in history. Before the curtain fell on this historical drama, the nation of England had been transformed. Henry VIII had pulled England out of the Catholic Church, establishing the Church of England under the authority of the monarchy; had beheaded Sir Thomas More, one of the greatest thinkers of the Renaissance, for not supporting his break with Rome; and had steered his country off the path leading to industrial-capitalist economic development and republican government.

Henry VIII had also thrown open the door for the cultural, political, and financial takeover of England by agents of the city-state of Venice. By the middle of the 1530s, Henry's government was in the hands of Venetian agents, and being shaped into a model of police-state political terror. By the end of Henry's reign, Venetian bankers were in control of a burgeoning English foreign debt, and dictating terms to the English throne. Within slightly over a century following Henry's death, England had been transformed into the usurious, slave-trading, imperial power of Great Britain, under the dictatorship of a Venetian party, which had been transplanted directly from the lagoons of Venice.

The manipulation of Henry's divorce was a foreign policy matter of some importance to the ruling oligarchy of Venice. As Donald Phau has documented in the first two parts of this series, the tiny Italian city-state established and maintained its vast influence over the economies, trade, and governments of Europe by the artful application of ``divide and conquer'' trickery, applied with the help of the largest and most sophisticated diplomatic corps in all the known world. Though successful during the first decades of Henry's reign in provoking two expensive and bloody wars between England and France--the most populous country in Europe--Venetian diplomacy had failed to do serious damage to cooperative relations between England and Spain, the homeland of Henry's queen.

Together, England and Spain controlled the Straits of Gibraltar, Atlantic entry-point to the Mediterranean; the English Channel, entry-point to the North and Baltic seas, as well as the location of rich Low Countries (what today are Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) port cities; and, in the case of Spain, half of the New World. As recently as the 1480s, Henry VII had overturned the privileges of Venetian merchants in English ports, awarding this carrying trade to ships of his own citizens; in 1494, the first Tudor king successfully challenged Venetian monopolies in trading of French wines and Spanish sherry. Together, Henry VII and King Ferdinand of Spain had played a forceful role in encouraging reforms from within the Catholic Church.

This alliance was to come to an abrupt end over the matter of Henry and Catherine's divorce.

The Venetian oligarchs, who hated the Christian view that all men are created in the image of God, (particularly as it was reflected in the Church's disapproval of slavery and prohibition of usury) were also interested in cutting down the influence of the Catholic Church. Venice spawned, nurtured, and sponsored both the leadership and footsoldiers of the Protestant Reformation for their own reasons. The theological apologetics for the schismatic movement within the Church were manufactured in the Camaldolese monastery of Santa Giustina, and in the salons of Lucca and other Italian cities, satellites of Venice, from whence they were injected into the academic institutions and courts of Europe. It was not until Henry VIII's break with Rome, however, that the Venetian efforts resulted in the establishment of a Protestant state church.

No wonder the Venetian gamemasters pounced on the opportunity to use Henry's dissatisfaction with Catherine to their own ends. And, they succeeded in doing just that by 1535, with the death of Thomas More, Henry's break with the Church, and the destruction of the English-Spanish alliance.


Cultural Warfare
Thus far, however, we have examined only Venice's tactical considerations vis-a-vis the King's Great Matter. The oligarchs of the lagoons had far more important, strategic goals in mind. These longer-term projects centered on questions of culture, especially Venice's hatred of the conceptions of man and nature which were the foundations of Western Judeo-Christian culture, in particular as it was being spread throughout Europe and the New World in the decades following the Golden Renaissance in Italy.

The Venetian deployment into England around Henry's divorce reveals the nature of the cultural warfare directed from Venice against the influence of the Golden Renaissance. From every nook and cranny popped out-and-out Venetian agents, ready to assist Henry. Right behind--in a classic display of the Venetian maneuver known as ``playing both sides against the middle''--followed Venice's candidates to enter the lists on the side of Queen Catherine.

And with them came everything bad Venice wished to impose on humanity: Aristotelianism, occultism, gnosticism, and other forms of mysticism and irrationalism. In short order, this invading force was to deal a mortal blow to English humanist circles led by Thomas More and Erasmus, which had struggled to build institutions to uplift society to the level befitting each individual human being's identity as man made in the image of God. England, a strong outpost of the Renaissance Christian cultural tradition in Europe, was to be turned into a new Venice of the north. < p>

First with his foot in the door was the Venetian-trained bureaucrat Thomas Cromwell, who rose to power on the corpse of Thomas More. Cromwell lay in wait as a court underling during the latter 1520s. He assumed the chancellorship upon More's resignation in 1532, after he had-according to More's son-in-law and biographer William Roper--presented the King with a theory of government based on the idea ``that his will and pleasure [be] regarded as law.''

Cromwell surrounded himself with a coterie of misguided and radical Protestants, similarly trained in Venice (just a coincidence, of course) or at the Arisotelian University of Padua. These included Thomas Starkey and Richard Morison, both of whom entered Cromwell's service in the early 1530s. Morison and particularly Starkey served as the pamphleteer-propagandists during Cromwell's reorganization of the English church and government. Cromwell's thoroughgoing reforms--accompanied by a reign of terror and hundreds of political conspiracy trials and executions--transformed England from a polity based on the rule of law, toward the ideal of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, in which the rule of men--in this case the suggestible and unstable Henry VIII--was concealed behind the appearance of the rule of law.

One historian of the period summarizes Cromwell's outlook thus:

``Cromwell wished to free statutes from that older limitation which wished to test it by reference to some external law--the law of nature, the law of Christendom (Thomas More's test). He held that [the positive law of a nation or state] was omnicompetent, and must be obeyed.''

(Thus, it was possible for historians to speak of the 'Church of England' as if it was the Reformation itself. When, in fact the formation of the Church of England was politics, plain and simple).

It was this lawless regime which framed up and murdered Thomas More.
To fortify Henry's case for divorce from Catherine, Cromwell compiled reports from more than a dozen royal emissaries, including John Stokesley, Richard Croke, and Thomas Cranmer (later to be named the first Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury) who had been sent to comb Europe's universities and religious institutions for scholars and divines who would buttress the King's position. This dragnet produced, among others, one Marco Raphael, a Venetian Jew converted to Christianity, and the reputed inventor of a new invisible ink. Though he held the high position of chief cipherist for the diplomatic service of ...... Venice, Raphael traveled to England to assist the King.

Also materializing at the English court, one might imagine in a puff of grey and aromatic smoke, was Francesco Giorgi, nicknamed the ``Cabalist Friar of Venice,'' by the Warburg Institute's late occult-specialist, Frances Yates. Giorgi was there to help Henry VIII, and brought with him armfuls of manuscripts, letters, and other documents supporting Henry's arguments for the divorce. Giorgi remained in England for more than five years, gaining the king's ear and entry into the inner court circle.

Meanwhile, partisans of Catherine's cause were busy trying to recruit another leading occultist--Henry Cornelius Agrippa--on her behalf.

Giorgi and Agrippa were two sides of the same coin. They were both political-intelligence agents, deployed at the instruction of their oligarchist masters. They were also agents of cultural warfare, carrying and propagating the Venetian currency of antiscientific irrationalism. Their occultist poison was--and remains Venice's most powerful weapon to prevent the development of an educated and rational population, equipped to dispense with aristocrats and govern itself.

Let us take a longer look at the necromancer and black magician, Henry Cornelius Agrippa, keeping in mind that Agrippa's outlook, and even his main writings, were virtually identical in essential content to those of Henry VIII's adviser and confidante, Francesco Giorgi.

Agrippa, who learned astrology at his mother's knee, was perhaps the leading occultist of early sixteenth-century Europe, rivaling Johannes Reuchlin for that title by dint of his energetic travels across the continent and back again, to build the sixteenth century occultist movement. He was born about 1486, in Nettesheim, Germany, and educated at the University of Cologne. How he was started on the road toward black magic and the occult is not known. But he spent a significant portion of his younger years in Italy, studying the mystical and occultist works of Pico della Mirandola, and in Paris, in the circles of occultists who were very active there. In Italy, France, and later Germany, Agrippa organized and recruited for a secret society reminiscent of the later freemasons.

This secret society was unabashedly gnostic. Its brotherhood was committed to the study of an ancient knowledge [Gnosis is the Greek word for knowledge] which it believed must be limited to an elite, kept secret as it had the power to be dangerous to the inferior masses of humanity. This secret knowledge could secure eternal salvation for initiates, while the common man was excluded from knowledge of God and eternal life. Agrippa wrote in his 1516 'The Three Ways of Knowing God' (De triplici ratione cognoscendi Deum), ``even the Gospel, like the Mosaic law, has one meaning on the surface for the more simple, another in its core, which has been separately revealed to the perfect ... nothing could be more absurd'' than the law, if taken literally.

Agrippa's tome, 'De occulta philosophia' (1510) catalogued the elements of this secret knowledge, and became the virtual bible of the occultist movement. It was the handbook of John Dee around the turn of the fifteenth century in England, and later of Robert Fludd, the founder of the Rosicrucian cult which prefigured freemasonry.

What superstitious nonsense did Agrippa peddle in 'De occulta philosophia'? Among other things, the conjuring of demons, magic rituals, astrological formulae, numerological combinations, and songs, poems and spells for controlling the actions of angels, demons, other human beings, and the physical universe. This passage from Book III discusses a spell for changing the weather:

``I have seen and known a certain man inscribing the name and sign of a certain spirit on virgin paper in the hour of the moon. When afterwards he had given this to a river frog to devour, and had murmured a certain song, having replaced the frog in the water, soon showers and storms rose up.''
De occulta philosophia delved at length into the so-called Jewish Cabala, the secret knowledge believers asserted had been handed to Moses by God when he declared the 10 Commandments. Cabalists like Agrippa asserted that God revealed his law in a literal form for the masses, but in an elaborated form for the inner elite. To this was added the study of other ancient secret knowledge, passed from the Egyptians, through the Greece of Plato and transmitted to the West during the middle of the fourteenth century with the Greek texts brought to Florence by Gemisthos Plethon. Among these texts were those attributed to Hermes Trigmegistus, the probably fictional Egyptian high priest whose writings are known as hermeticism.

Christian cabalists like Pico, Giorgi, and Agrippa sought to syncretize this ancient secret knowledge with the tenets of Christianity. In his Three Ways of Knowing God, Agrippa described three paths to knowledge of the Almighty: the natural world, which reveals only a reflection of God in His creations; the cabala--the ancient, secret knowledge; and, after the coming of Christ, the divinely inspired Holy Gospels. But, specifies Agrippa, the New Testament, like the Old Testament, is divided into an open revelation available to all who read it, and a secret revelation, available only those who possess the secret knowledge.

At their irrational extremes, Giorgi and Agrippa studied the numerological significance of the Hebrew letters in the name of Jesus Christ, which they believed proved that Jesus was the Messiah. Both Giorgi and Agrippa also asserted that the universe is divided into three realms--the natural world, the celestial world, and the supercelestial world, Heaven--all under the control of angels and demons upon whom a magician may call for special aid. Giorgi's elaboration of this three-fold system appears in his 1525 textbook of the occult, De harmonia mundi (The Harmony of the World).

Also on the occult fringe were astrology, alchemy, and magical music and poetry, such as the so-called Orphic hymns which fascinated Pico. These date back to Attic Greece in the centuries before Christianity. The Orphic hymns were part of violent orgiastic rituals, in which maddened women, known as Maenads, drugged or otherwise intoxicated, roamed through the forests at night, tearing animals from limb to limb; the same fate befell any man who was unfortunate enough to cross the path of one of these rampaging bands.

(Agrippa - perhaps under the influence of an Orphic hymn--argued vociferously that women are superior to men. In his 'De nobilitate et pracellantia foeminei sexus' of 1509, Agrippa advanced a number of occultist and feminist arguments that women are more perfect than men.)

The influence of the stars on the human personality traits (which Agrippa called ``humours'') is put forth in the following passage from ;De occulta philosophia:


``The humor melancholicus, when it takes fire and glows, generates the frenzy (furor) which leads us to wisdom and revelation, especially when it is combined with a heavenly influence, above all with that of Saturn.... Therefore, Aristotle says in the Problematica that through melancholy some men have become divine beings, foretelling the future like Sybils ... while others have become poets ... and he says further that all men who have been distinguished in any branch of knowledge have generally been
``Moreover, the humor melancholis has such power that they say it attracts certain demons into our bodies, those whose presence and activity men fall into ecstacies and pronounce many wonderful things.... This occurs in three different forms, imagination ... the rational ... and the mental... [When] the soul is fully concentrated in the imagination, it immediately becomes a habitation for lower demons, from whom it often receives wonderful instruction in the lower arts.... But when the soul is fully concentrated in the reason, it becomes the home of the middle demons; thereby it attains knowledge of natural and human things;... But when the soul soars completely to the intellect, it becomes the home of the higher demons, from whom it learns the secrets of divine matters....''

Though Giorgi, Agrippa, and other occultists of the day moved in the intellectual circles of the university and the church, their ideas radiated with some intensity into society around them. By the 1530s, De occulta philosphia was the handbook for sorcerers, witches, and wizards all over Europe. Giorgi's De harmonia mundi was translated into French in 1578, and spurred the witchcraft movement in France.

Jean Bodin, the leader of France's politiques faction, which sought to promote religous toleration, took very seriously the extent of Giorgi's influence, and fiercely attacked him as a chief architect of the witchcraft movement plaguing Europe. In 1580, Bodin published a his 'De la démonomanie des sorciers', a treatise on the philosophical foundations of satanism, with suggestions for dealing with witchcraft.

In Elizabethan England, where the ideas of Agrippa and Giorgi were at work in the occult movement that was to become freemasonry, dramatist Christopher Marlowe attacked black magic head on. In his 'Tragical History of the Life and Death of Dr. Faustus', Marlowe presents the cynical, devil-conjuring Dr. Faustus as a student of Agrippa. When Faustus conjures up Mephistopheles using cabalist numerology and anagrams, Faust tells the devil that he is too ugly to appear as himself: ``Go and returne an old Franciscan Frier, That holy shape becomes a devil beast'.

Under influence of Venetian agent Thomas Cromwell's Aristotelian ``might makes right'' philosophy of government, and the occultism spewed by such as Giogi and Agrippa, it is no wonder Henrican England descended toward a new dark age, both culturally and economically, after Thomas More's death in 1535. The country which, on the occasion of Henry VIII's coronation in 1509, Erasmus had hailed as a new opportunity to develop a society based on the dignity of man, was now set on the downward path toward slave-trading, drug-dealing, and imperialist conquest.

//

[yanni]

Having already proven beyond reasonable doubt the true identity(Gioachino Cocchi) of Le Comte de Saint Germain, as well as his basic literary aliases (Grimm, Rousseau, Raynal, Chastellux etc) , the conclusion that Cocchi-Saint Germain used also "Gluck" as alias was (and still is today for anyone who cares to check it on the web) easy to reach, a piece of cake (in my opinion, at least)!

Yet you still keep on asking me to provide "evidence of Gluck and other aliases" while,from early on when you first joined this site, you have been offered ample opportunity, via continuing references to my other threads, to enable you verify yourself the fact and publicaly accept or dispute it, presenting evidence to the contrary.

You did neither and, obviously not wishing to be part of such "radical" notions, assumed to my annoyance the "haven't seen, haven't heard" stand, dragging your feet to eternity, never to cross the lines of your "Mozart was manufactured" uniquely monotonus motto.

OK he was manufactured, everybody knows, so what?

You "spent sometime with these things", you say: that's fine, where are your answers?

Which side was Mozart on, early 1783, when Weishaupt took control of the Scottish Orthodox Rite attacking Les Philalethes and the Rosicrucians, and how was his "career" relatively affected, do you know?

Are you still asking yourself the same questions Volkmar Braunbehrens selected to close his 1989 article with?

Had the Scottish Rite taken its revenge against those who tried to impose reason and a Christian concept of love upon the Freemasonry?
Could Mozart's sudden demise in 1791 have been an earlier death sentence by these forces?
Is the new ritual murder being carried out today against Mozart, by the movie producers of Amadeus and others, who portray this great moral artist as a foul-mouthed, brainless fop effortlessly churning out divine compositions, being committed at the behest of the heirs of Mozart's enemies?
http://american_almanac.tripod.com/mozart.htm Review of: Mozart in Vienna, 1781-1791, by Volkmar Braunbehrens, Grove-Weidenfeld, New York, 1989,

And what do you make of this author's selection to leave both Gluck and Grimm (and diplomat Nissen's "Barbary" involvement with the USA navy) alltogether out of his "study"?

Give it a try!

Cheers!

Yanni,

You should write a book about Gluck. It seems (to me anyway) your way of presenting things lacks any structure. We are to accept, on your say so, that Gluck was a diplomat. That Nissen (Constanze's second husband) was Mozart himself. And so it goes on. I can only suggest you spend time showing us these things. With real evidence.

I have spent some time on these things. Let's take the Nissen theory. Just that. I've corresponded with its inventor. Several times. An American. Asking him to do the basic research that would tend to confirm his theory. Things like, for example, producing some examples of Nissen's handwriting. The Nissen theory has some good points, for sure. And I've said so in the past. After all, what chance is there for a Danish diplomat to be renting a room in Vienna with the widow of Mozart ? It's absurd. Of course it is.

But the absurdity of the story is not proof of an alternative. It is pefectly clear Nissen had links with Regensburg earlier in his career. As did Mozart. It is clear too he is some way involved in the manufacture of Mozart. As were various diplomats (including the British Ambassador in Vienna). But it is not clear (at least to me) that Nissen was Mozart himself. Still, I am sure those who believe differently will provide the much needed evidence that would make their theory credible.

We should not, however, lose sight of the fact that on the basic issue we are agreed. Mozart's musical career was manufactured. And since this, from a musical point of view, is my focus, I hope to see from you and from others more on Nissen. A man who knew virtually nothing of music and whose portrait bears more than a striking resemblance to Mozart. But which, to date, lacks more than circumstantial evidence.

I understand from one source the word 'Nissen' means 'elf' or mythical creature in Danish. The idea itself is interesting.

Virtually none of the works of Gluck are today performed or regarded as great musical value. Which is why I mentioned the fact before.

I, like most people, have a finite capacity to entertain ideas which never seem to result in conclusion. It remains my view that in a world of aliases the onus is on you to give us the hard information that links them all, and this first of all. Since the human mind does not find attraction in unsubstantiated speculations and is not convinced by one line 'proofs'. The basic structure must be presented. On which complexities are explained. But, without that, we can spend our lives going round and round in circles. This I wish to avoid.

I look forward to your 'proof' that Nissen was none other than W.A. Mozart. For myself, I find it to be an interesting idea that lacks hard evidence. Designed to 'muddy the water'. To throw dust in our eyes on the actual fact that this music exists and that its origins had nothing to do with either Nissen or Mozart. Nissen was a propagandist. Of this there is no doubt. But, whether or not he was Mozart himself, well, that is for others to show. I have examined it and found that it lacks basic evidence.

Does the Mozart story stand up to close examination ? No, it does not. That is fact number 1. Does a body of music attributed to him exist ? Yes, it does. And therefore you will understand that my priority is to stay with those issues and not to entertain ideas which, so far, have done little to explain how that music came in to being.

Regards


//

[Musicology]

Yanni,

You again refer to -

Gioachino Cocchi of Le Comte de Saint Germain, as well as his basic literary aliases (Grimm, Rousseau, Raynal, Chastellux etc)

Do please tell us something. For whom was this person working ? I am keen you should tell us after all these posts. Can you tell us ?

It is not difficult to see 'Scottish Rite' Freemasonry was, from the start of its existence, associated with support for the Stuart cause, starting with Mary Queen of Scots whose aim (unless we are all mistaken) was to restore the Catholic dynasty of the Stuarts to rule over Britain. Whose most recent attempt was with Stuart Prince Charles in 1745, this after the papally approved attempt of the Spanish Armada of 1588 had spectacularly failed, also after the failed Gunpowder Plot of a few years later etc. etc. Such things are not really so hard to understand, are they ? Nor is it difficult to understand the aristocracy of England had many low key papal supporters in the 18th century. After all, their heritage came from the papally approved invasion and carve up of English land in 1066. I even dare to think such things can be understood by almost anyone. With minimal effort. Whether you support the European Union or not (an institution nobody in Britain voted for but which also aims to take over the sovereignty of Britain). Such things are not new, are they ?

But do please reveal, finally, who Cocchi was working for with all these 'aliases'. That will help.

Regards

[yanni]

You are obviously confused:

Rite of Strict Observance
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Part of a series of articles on Freemasonry
The Rite of Strict Observance was a Rite of Freemasonry, a series of progressive degrees that were conferred by the Order of Strict Observance, a Masonic body of the 18th century.

Baron Karl Gotthelf von Hund (1722-1776) introduced a new Scottish Rite to Germany, which he renamed "Rectified Masonry" and, after 1764, the "Strict Observance", while referring to the English system of Freemasonry as the "Late Observance."

The Rite appealed to German national pride, attracted the non-nobility, and was allegedly directed by "Unknown Superiors". The Strict Observance was particularly devoted to the reform of Masonry, with special reference to the elimination of the occult sciences which at the time were widely practiced in many lodges, and the establishment of cohesion and homogeneity in Masonry through the enforcement of strict discipline, the regulation of functions, etc.

Depite its initial popularity, growing dissatisfaction among members over the failure to being initiated into the mysteries of the Unknown Superiors ("ascended masters" which were later claimed to be clerics of the Knights Templars) led to the Strict Observance being dissolved in 1782.[1]

References Trevor W. McKeown, "The Rite of Strict Observance", Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon A.F. & A. M, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-06-11. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rite_of_Strict_Observance"


Comte de Saint Germain:

As "Pierre Michel Hennin-Cocchini", comte de Saint Germain was first employed by the Foreign Ministry of Royal France (about 1750's, see previous on Durazzo), 1776-78 he served France as Minister of War, fought in USA as "Chastellux" 1781-83, served then again French Foreign Affairs under more names, left France about the time the royal couple was executed to join his (Grimm's) friend, Empress Catherine of Russia. He served Russia to his death, 1819 or 20.


Cheers.