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"Mystical Figure" , Jacob Martin |
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"Awakening Man, Johann Gichtel |
In the last 2 installments of this blog, I wrote about the
discovery of the “Mystical Figure” above on the left from the papers of Jacob
Martin at the Ephrata Cloister. I
explained how this “Mystical Figure” was a copy of the figure on the right,
“Awakening Man", from a publication by Johann Gichtel in 1696. In this third installment, I will attempt to explain
how the Mystical Figure was interpreted in the past and how certain
misconceptions and difficulties in interpretation could have been made. In the 4th and final installment
of this blog, I will attempt to discover and present the significance that
this “Mystical Figure” held for Jacob Martin from Ephrata.
As I explained in an earlier installment of this blog, my
first encounter with the “Mystical Figure” was about 2 years ago when I was
researching possible connections between Ephrata and the early Mormon Church. I
was reading a book, Early Mormonism and
the Magical World View, an important book in Mormon scholarship, by Michael D. Quinn (1987). Quinn was
here at Ephrata in the 1980’s researching his book and included an image of the
“Mystical Figure” in his final manuscript. His interpretation of the image was
as follows:
“A member of the Rosicrucian Ephrata commune, in Lancaster
Pennsylvania, in the late 1700’s drew a picture of a man wearing a
religio-magical garment featuring the salamander. The astrological symbol for Saturn was on the
man’s crown and the symbol for Jupiter on his far head. On the left breast of his garment, surrounded
by flames, was the Sacred Heart of Jesus with a stick figure of an ascending
bird (apparently either the Christian symbol of a dove as the Holy Ghost or the
mythical Phoenix symbol of resurrection), and on the garments right breast was
a stick figure of a four footed reptile – obviously a salamander, which figured
prominently in the Rosicrucian philosophy of elemental spirits that the Ephrata
commune had mixed with its Christian mysticism.”
Quinn goes on to write,
“Over the left breast, surrounded by flames,
is the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is dripping sanctifying blood upon the
planet earth. From the heart is the
stick figure of an ascending bird (the Christian symbol for the Holy Ghost or
the mythological Phoenix). Over the right breast is the stick figure of a
four-footed reptile (representing the Ephrata Commune’s Rosicrucian theology of
the salamander as the elemental spirit of fire). The sash belt reflects
descriptions of both biblical and magic vestments. However, the Ephrata garment was of
skin-tight, wrist to ankle construction, with fastening seam from chest to
navel.”
D. Michael Quinn is a fine Mormon Scholar and this book is
an important piece of scholarship in Mormon Studies. I read it and intend using
it in my further research on the early Mormon Church. However, the writing he
did on the “Mystical Figure” or as he described it, “a man wearing a
religio-magical garment” contains a number of inaccuracies, probably due to
assumptions he made based on previous research.
Obviously, D. Michael Quinn had no idea that the “Mystical Figure” was
based on the much older Gichtel illustration. Had he known, he could have
compared the two images side-by-side. He no doubt may have arrived at some very
different conclusions. Let us now make a side-by-side comparison of both
illustrations to see what Quinn got right, and where he went astray.
The first part of Quinn’s description of the “Mystical
Figure” is correct. Both the “Mystical Figure’ and “Awakening Man” has the
astrological symbol for Saturn on the crown of the head and the symbol for
Jupiter on the forehead. Quinn was also fairly accurate regarding the depiction
of the figure emerging out of the heart of the figure. Arthur Versluis writes
that the heart inscribed “Jesus” shows a bird, maybe phoenix, eagle, or dove
representing the Holy Spirit rising out of its light. Quinn is also correct about
the blood dripping from the heart of Jesus, however; the recipient of that
blood is actually Mercury, not the planet Earth. The four-footed creature on the right breast
is actually a dog, not a salamander, although the crude style of the artist and
previous Ephrata research may have lead him to make that assumption. Verslius
explains that the dog symbolizes desires and the animal self and in an earlier version
of “Awakening Man”, (“Fenster Mench”) is turned toward the heart influencing it. In “Awakening Man”, there is spiritual
improvement and the dog is not longer seen facing the heart, but is turned away
from the heart and now exercising less influence upon it.
Quinn’s description of the sash belt
reflecting both biblical and magic vestments is interesting. Whether the sash
has any meaning in the Gichtel illustration is unclear. It may simply serve as
covering for the privates. Quinn describes this sash as part of a skin-tight
garment with wrist to ankle construction, and a fastening seam from chest to
navel. In the Gichtel illustration, “Awakening Man’s garment disappears. The upper and lower halves of the body are
unclothed and the torso appears to be split into a “Yin-Yang”-like spiritual
division. Even if we did not have the
Gichtel illustration with which to compare, Quinn’s description of this “religio-magical
garment” simply does not fit. There is nothing like that garment in any of the
depictions of Ephrata clothing or garb at the time, neither in the art work,
nor in any firsthand accounts of what they wore. One very interesting aspect of
the Jacob Martin illustration, not mentioned by Quinn, and not appearing in the
Gichtel illustration is the overly emphasized hairy left arm. In the Jacob Martin illustration, the arm is
almost mammalian. Could this symbolize the “Base” mammalian instincts that man
strives to suppress? Spiritual and religious literature throughout history has
examples of this tendency.
D. Michael Quinn’s association of the”Mystical Figure” with Rosicrucian
philosophy is understandable. The theory that Ephrata was a Rosicrucian order
most likely emerged from Julius Sachse. Sachse was an important German American
Historian in the late 1800’s. His
scholarship was important and he can be credited with saving and disseminating
much of the early history of Ephrata. He was also an excellent photographer,
responsible for recording and preserving many of the earliest and best
photographic images of Ephrata and its spinoff, The Snow Hill Monastery. His
contributions to Ephrata research cannot and should not be discounted. However; Sachse was not above elaborating,
bending, manipulating, and even fabricating facts and evidence to make a good
story. One should not forget that his
massive two volume history of Ephrata is subtitled, “A Critical and Legendary
History of the Ephrata Cloister and the Dunkers”. His book is a serious piece
of research, but it was written in a more romantic literary style than modern
academic history today, and it must be read with a critical eye. Unfortunately,
many subsequent historians researching Ephrata seemed to take Sachse completely
at his word and Quinn appears to be following in this vein. In 1985, E.G. Alderfer published, “The Ephrata Commune: An
Early American Counter Culture”. This book was written in a modern academic
style, but the great majority of its evidence comes from Sachse, and other
authors that took him at his word. Quinn
possible accepted Alderfer’s book as the newest and most reliable source of
modern scholarship on Ephrata, and his frequent use of term “commune” suggests
that he was influenced by Alderfer’s book.
Quinn also cites Alderfer and Sachse frequently in the part about
Ephrata. Based on the previous accepted research, Quinn created a narrative for
the “Mystical Figure” that fitted his understanding of the evidence. These are some of the problems that come from
accepting the work of previous authors without looking into the primary
evidence.
Here marks the end of the third installment of my blog on
the “Mystical Figure” from Jacob Martin’s papers at Ephrata. Hopefully, I have
explained successfully how the “Mystical Figure” was interpreted in the past
and how certain misconceptions and difficulties in interpretation could have
been made. In the 4th and
final installment of this blog, I will attempt to discover and present the
significance that this “Mystical Figure” held for Jacob Martin from Ephrata.
Thank you for reading.
Nick Siegert