Bruna Frascolla
When only a select group has access to the Truth that guides the organization of society, it is evident that the university, by its exoteric and non-initiatory nature, cannot be the repository of this knowledge.
In the last article, we briefly reviewed the story of John Dee: the occultist responsible for the mathematical knowledge that enabled the creation of a British Empire based on navigation. Dee only became the king of mathematics because of the reforms undertaken in British universities. First the Erasmians, then the Protestants, sought to purge all medievalism from the universities, and these efforts resulted in chairs of Latin belles-lettrism. England became "of the humanities," and Dee, the chieftain of the exact sciences. Given that Dee learned everything on his own, and that since the 1550s he had been accused of conjuring demons, it was believed that he had acquired his knowledge through supernatural means, and it is possible that Marlowe was inspired by him to create his Dr. Faustus.
One of the things I found most peculiar about Dee was the fact that it's not so easy to find information about his scientific achievements, nor about his plans for the government, in academic publications, and it was in a declassified NSA article that I was able to read a summary of Dee's relationship with the crown. Since 2011, thanks to "Transparency Case #6385J," we can read an article by a certain Leslie A. Rutledge entitled "John Dee: Advisor to Queen Elizabeth I," in which the scientist who worked secretly for intelligence compared his own role to that of John Dee. Right at the beginning, he writes:
"A leading intellectual of the moment, Paul Goodman [1911 - 1972], is fond of saying that we should return to the university as it was centuries ago-when experts lived in walled university towns and nurtured autonomous professionals, who occasionally sallied forth into the world to raise standards, advise governments, and castigate quackery and fraudulence. But does Goodman realize the extent of government sponsorship of academic scholars in those times ? Consider the career of our man Dee. He was financed through sixty years of public service through government funds, yet he was accounted one of the most learned men in Europe in his time. He was offered many academic posts, and became in his seventies the Warden of Manchester College. He lived most of his life, not in a walled university town, but within a few miles of Windsor Castle."
In a corporatist spirit, Rutledge extols Dee's pecuniary gains. He comments on the magnitude of the impact of his work: even though few people knew who Dee was, newspapers were looking for Welsh-speaking Indians because of him. Talking about Dee's time, he refers to the Queen's secret service as the CIA.
But secrecy was not limited to dealings with the government. In John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus, the scholar Peter French mentions the fact that literary-musical secret societies of occultists were common during the Renaissance. The most famous case is La Pléiade, by Jean-Antoine de Baïf (1532 - 1589). In England, there was the Areopagus, by Sir Philip Sidney (1554 - 1586). Unlike the French guys, John Dee's English pupils did not have a famous secret society, so it is not known whether the Areopagus was just an informal group of friends, or whether it was a more elaborate society. Measured, Peter French considers that "John Dee was close to the powerful group of men who were largely responsible for the amazing renaissance in the arts and sciences that took place during Elizabeth's reign. Since he was sought out by so many of the individuals promoting the
exciting developments of the English Renaissance and since these people listened respectfully to his views on many subjects, it is not unreasonable to assume that they also heard about his Hermetic philosophy." Among these men were Francis Bacon's father, the Dudleys (the queen's favorite took lessons with Dee), and the Sidneys.
Is there an English tradition of scientific secret societies ? It seems so. It is noteworthy that less than two centuries later a secret society emerged - the Lunar Society - which may have been more important to the history of England than any English university. In the mid-18th century, English men of science began to meet on full moon nights to discuss philosophical topics. Its members included Charles Darwin's grandfather, James Watt, Benjamin Franklin, and a host of industrialists who, possessing new machines, created the Industrial Revolution.
And since we've descended into this rabbit hole with the help of Mr. Epstein, it doesn't hurt to point out that Edge.Org - the Epstein-funded atheist club that included a number of scientists - has the express purpose of following the model of these secret or discreet societies. On its website, it states: "Edge bears resemblance to the early seventeenth-century Invisible College, a precursor to the Royal Society. Its members consisted of scientists such as Robert Boyle, John Wallis, and Robert Hooke. The Society's common theme was to acquire knowledge through experimental investigation. Another inspiration is The Lunar Society of Birmingham, an informal club of the leading cultural figures of the new industrial age-James Watt, Erasmus Darwin, Josiah Wedgwood, Joseph Priestley, and Benjamin Franklin."
Thus, the overall picture allows us to conclude that the university, this medieval and Catholic institution, has its natural place in a political regime that is, like Catholicism itself, exoteric (note the spelling): in which the ruler is a public authority known to all, such as the Pope himself, and uses a doctrine publicly available. Anyone who passes exams can enroll in a university - not someone who commits to secret societies and undergoes initiation rites that separate them from ordinary mortals. There, they will access knowledge that is public. Although a peasant would not understand the Aristotelianism behind transubstantiation, the authorities would not lie to him; instead, they would explain it in simple language and provide limited information. The peasant's son, if he wished, could become a clergyman and go to university to learn Aristotle and better understand transubstantiation. A lay bourgeois could study the subject on his own, since the Church's doctrine was not secret (unlike the magic of occultists). In short, the theological and metaphysical premises of medieval society, in which the university emerged, were publicly available, even if the average person might not have had the means to access them directly.
In an esoteric (note the spelling) society, however, theological and metaphysical premises are accessible to a group as select as those who have access to Epstein's island or the Edge meetings (which were attended by Bill Gates, Marina Abramović, the founders of Google). There, even the funding of university projects is discussed.
Now, universities today claim to have no metaphysical foundation, much less a theological one. As we have been insisting, universities are not capable of giving even a meaning of "man" that is valid for all disciplines, and therefore it is not surprising that they end up saying that women have penises.
When only a select group has access to the Truth that guides the organization of society, it is evident that the university, by its exoteric and non-initiatory nature, cannot be the repository of this knowledge. And so we have the profound social conditions for the emerging of today's universities, which are often simply mechanisms for student debt, or pure centers of political propaganda. Only in a society guided by principles known to the public is it possible for the university to transmit knowledge in a serious and in-depth manner to whoever passes the selection process.