The Brethren of the Free Spirit - divine amorality
by Paul Harrison
`Rejoice with me, for I have become God. I am made eternal in my
eternal blessedness.'
In the early thirteenth century, a number of theologians at Paris
were preaching a pantheistic Christianity. David of Dinant taught
that God was identical with primary matter: "It is manifest that
there is only one substance, not only of all bodies, but also of all
souls, and that this substance is nothing else but God himself. . . It
is clear, then, that God and Matter and Mind are one substance.'
Amalric of Bena (also known as Amaury de Bene) held that God
was the formal principle of all things, and that every single person
was as much God as was Christ.
The works of both men were condemned as heretical and burned. In
1215 Amalric's bones were exhumed and reburied in an
unconsecrated field.
After Amalric's death in 1207 a group of fourteen clerics, which
included Amalric's secretary, began to profess pantheistic beliefs.
They held that `all things are One, because whatever is, is God.'
They believed that, just as the time of the Patriarchs was the age of
the Father, and the Christian era to date the age of the Son, so now
a new age of the Holy Spirit was dawning, and they were its
heralds. One of the ringleaders proclaimed that he was God, and
therefore he could not be burned by fire or hurt by torture.
If everything is God, then everything is also good. It follows that
there can be no such thing as sin. Hence the Amaurians indulged in
(or at least they were accused of indulging in) sexual pleasures and
crimes of all kinds. "They committed rapes and adulteries and other
acts which gave pleasure to the body. And to the women with
whom they sinned, and to the simple people whom they deceived,
they promised that sins would not be punished."
The Amalricians were betrayed by one Master Ralph, who joined
them and travelled with them for some months, but in reality was
working as an agent for the Bishop of Paris. In 1210 the
Amalricians were arrested and tried. Nine of them refused to recant.
They were publicly disgraced, and burned at the stake.
Later followers of the Free Spirit took the same principles even
further, saying that for all those who realized their identity with
God, any action whatsoever was permitted, including theft, rape,
incest and murder. As with Tantric Buddhism, the sex act was
regarded as the delight of Paradise and the ascent to mystical
ecstasy.
In the early fourteenth century the Beghards of Cologne enacted
naked masses in which participants rejoiced that they had returned
to the state of Adam and Eve before the fall. Denounced by the
husband of one of the women, the leader, Walter of Cologne, and
fifty of his followers were executed by burning and drowning.
The heresy of the Free Spirit spread widely in Champagne,
Thringen, Brussels, Cologne, Bavaria and other areas,
disseminated by wandering weavers and mendicant religious
travellers known as Beghards and Beguines. This was a time of
population growth and rapid social change, and there were many
other religious social movements such as Catharism, flagellants,
and people's crusades. The followers of the Free Spirit were the
hippies of the day.
The texts that follow are in the words of contemporaries, cited in
Norman Cohn's classic The Pursuit of the Millennium, Secker and
Warburg, London, 1957; and in Walter Wakefield and Austin
Evans, Heresies of the High Middle Ages, Columbia University
Press, New York, 1991.
God is in every stone.
God is in every stone and in each limb of the human body as surely
as in the eucharistic bread.
Every created thing is divine.
`They say they are God by nature, without distinction.'
The divine essence is my essence and my essence is the divine
essence. . . . From eternity man was God in God. . . . .From eternity
the soul of man was in God and is God.
One of the ringleaders `dared to affirm that, in so far as he was, he
could neither by consumed by fire nor tormented by torture, for he
said that, in so far as he was, he was God.'
They say they are God by nature, without any distinction. . . They
believe that all divine perfections are in them, that they are eternal
and are in eternity.
Rejoice with me, for I have become God.
The Spirit of Freedom or the Free Spirit is attained when one is
wholly transformed into God. This union is so complete that
neither the Virgin Mary nor the Angels are able to distinguish
between man and God. In it one is restored to one's original state,
before one flowed out of the Deity. One is illumined by that
essential light, beside which all created light is darkness and
obfuscation.
Rejoice with me, for I have become God. . . . I am made eternal in
my eternal blessedness. [Schwester Katrei]
Paradise is within ourselves.
They denied the resurrection of bodies and said that there was no
paradise or hell; one who possessed the knowledge of God . . . had
paradise within himself, but one who was in mortal sin had hell
within himself.
[Condemnation of the Amalricians]
They say that the Holy Spirit, incarnate in them, revealed all things
to the, and this revelation was no other than the resurrection of the
dead; whence they declare that they themselves are now risen from
the dead.
[The errors of the Amalricians]
Nameless wildness and untrammelled freedom.
With most dangerous deceit they strive secretly to persuade people
that sinners shall not be punished, saying that sin is nothing. . . . .
But the supreme madness and the most impudent falsehood is that
such men should not fear nor blush to say that they are God. Oh
what boundless folly, what abominable presumption, that an
adulterer, a male concubine, one weighed down with infamy, a
vessel of iniquity, should be called God!"
[John the Teuton, Abbot of St Victor.]
What is your name?
Nameless wildness
Where does your insight lead to?
Into untrammelled freedom.
Tell me, what do you call untrammelled freedom?
When a man lives according to all his caprices without
distinguishing between God and himself, and without looking
before or after.
[Heinrich Suso of Cologne]
Nothing is sin.
If anyone was "in the Spirit", they said, even if he were to commit
formication or to be fouled by any other filthiness, there would be
no sin in him. [Condemnation of the Amalricians.] When a man has
truly reached the great and high knowledge, he is no longer bound
to observe any law or command, for he has become one with God.
God created all things to serve such a person, and all that God ever
created is the property of such a person. . . . He shall take from all
creatures as much as his nature desires and craves, for all created
things are his property. . . . A man whom all heaven serves, all
people and all creatures are indeed obliged to serve and obey; and
if any disobeys, it alone is guilty.
[A Beguine reciting her catechism.]
Nothing is sin except what is thought of as sin.
He who attributes to himself anything that he does, and does not
attribute it all to God, is in ignorance, which is hell.
It would be better that the whole world should be destroyed and
perish utterly than that a `free man' should refrain from one act to
which his nature moves him. . . . The truly free man is king and lord
of all creatures. All things belong to him, and he has the right to
use whatever pleases him. If anyone tries to prevent him, the free
man may kill him and take his goods. [Johann Hartmann]
Whatever the eye sees and covets, let the hand grasp it. [John of
Brnn]
SCIENTIFIC PANTHEISM
is the belief that the universe and nature are divine.
It fuses religion and science, and concern for humans with concern
for nature.
It provides the most realistic concept of life after death,
and the most solid basis for environmental ethics.
It is a religion that requires no faith other than common sense,
no revelation other than open eyes and a mind open to evidence,
no guru other than your own self.
For an outline, see Basic principles of scientific pantheism. Top.
If you would like to spread the message of scientific pantheism
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