pre- Ordo Templi Orientis
Carl Kellner
Franz Hartmann
Theodor Reuss
CARL KELLNERby Josef Dvorak.
Kellner and the death of forests
Carl Kellner, a self-made man who came of relatively humble origins, became
a major captain of industry in the Austro-Hungarian Empire; through his
hard work and inventiveness he made financial and technical advances on an
international level - in Europe, Britain, and even as far afield as the
USA.
Born in Vienna in 1850, he appears to have learned his profession of
chemist in various private laboratories. It is unclear whether he ever
studied at a college or university, although after 1895 he certainly used
the title of Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy). My searches in the records of
likely institutions were unsuccessful in discovering where he obtained his
academic honour; sadly, due to bomb-damage in WWII, family documents which
might have resolved the question are lost. Nevertheless, in the archives of
numerous patent offices there are still hundreds of files detailing
Kellner's inventions, attesting his originality of thought and ingenuity,
especially in the field of electro-chemistry.
He made his first invention in 1873 at the age of 23, when he was employed
at a paper-works in Görz, in what was then the Austrian province of Friaul
(today Friuli in Italy). The factory was owned by Baron Eugen Hektor von
Zahony, a friend of his father's, and a member of the Austrian parliament -
Kellner was also employed as a tutor to the Baron's children. One day while
working in the factory's laboratory, Kellner made a mistake in a standard
quality-control analysis - and discovered that heating wood-pulp in a
sulphite-solution produced cellulose - a valuable product that until that
time had been difficult and expensive to manufacture.
The invention was patented in 1882 as the "Ritter-Kellner" process; it
quickly revolutionised both paper-manufacture, and cellulose production -
but it also meant the beginnings of widespread de-forestation, and serious
pollution - not that this seems to have concerned anyone much at the time.
In 1888 Kellner circulated a memorandum to a number of big financial
institutions, in which he called for closer co-operation between North
American manufacturers and the Carinthian forestry industry, aiming "to
rule the world cellulose market". His scheme held out alluring prospects to
his potential investors; the proposed cost of the first planned factory was
only 3 million Gulden, (50 million DM today); Kellner promised shareholders
a "super dividend of 52.5%".
A year later, together with Edward Partington from England, and Oscar
Pedersen from Norway, Kellner co-founded the "Kellner-Partington Paper Pulp
Co. Limited" in Austria, with a starting capital of £930,000. This paper
factory (which still exists today) was built at Hallein near Salzburg; the
River Salzach had to be diverted to provide the large supplies of water
that the "Ritter-Kellner" process required. Other factories using Kellner's
invention were soon being built, and the patent was licenced to other
manufacturers for a suitable fee. But even with this highly successful
concern to his credit, Kellner did not rest on his laurels. He established
a large industrial laboratory in Vienna, and staffed it with
highly-qualified scientists from colleges and universities. Together with
them, he produced many further inventions, among which were an electrolytic
process for making chlorine; another for manufacturing caustic soda;
mercury-vapour lamps; the development of many hitherto unknown alloys; and
research into the production of synthetic gems and minerals. Kellner's
industrial career climaxed in 1904, with the building of a huge cellulose
factory at St. Magdalenen near Villach; but it went bankrupt. Perhaps this
was because Kellner's mind was on other things by this stage; for a man of
such apparent scientific and financial acumen, he had a very unusual set of
interests outside the laboratory and boardroom: for Carl Kellner considered
himself an adept in the mysterious world of occultism - he was fascinated
by Yoga, Rosicrucianism, alchemy, and (so his disciple and successor
Theodor Reuss claimed) sex-magic as well...
Franz Hartmann's small change
A close friend of Kellner and his family was a certain Dr. Franz Hartmann.
Hartmann had once been a close collaborator and confidant of Madame Helena
Petrovna Blavatsky, well-known through her voluminous writings on esoteric
subjects as the 'modern-day-Sibyl', and founder of the Theosophical
Society. Known as HPB for short, Blavatsky had been largely responsible for
introducing and popularising Eastern religious and philosophical ideas to
the western world, and for the continued popularity of Spiritualism at the
end of the 19th century. Kellner considered his friend little short of a
genius; in his eyes Hartmann was a penetrating esoteric philosopher, and it
was rumoured that he was a high initiate of the mysterious Rosicrucian
brotherhood.What is beyond dispute is the prominent rôle Hartmann played on
Vienna's esoteric scene: he was responsible for inducing the culturally
influential historian Friedrich Eckstein (friend and collaborator of
Sigmund Freud) to join the Theosophical Society, along with Eckstein's
wife, who was a well-regarded author who wrote under the nom-de-plume of
'Sir Galahad'.
Through Eckstein's esoteric associations, Freud found out a good deal of
information about Yoga, and this was to have its influence on the creation
of psycho-analysis. Eckstein had been given a charter in June 1886
(personally signed by HPB) to establish a Theosophical Lodge in Vienna.
Kellner was also friends with Eckstein, and gave him the nickname 'Mac
Eck'; professionally, both moved in the same circles; Eckstein had
inherited his father's parchment factory in Vienna, and also took out
several patents to do with paper chemistry. Hartmann, however, was not
quite of the same calibre as these well-heeled occultists; he always seemed
to be short of money, and eked out his existence by imposing on the
hospitality of whoever would put up with him. He never lived in a home of
his own, but moved about between various friends' houses, where they were
expected to take care of him. Hartmann certainly wore out his welcome with
the Ecksteins, who ended up by complaining loudly about his leech-like
habits; but the wealthy Kellner could well afford to more tolerant, and
always gave him a welcome. Kellner's widow (d. in 1949) colportated
stories about Hartmann's penny-pinching: for example, whenever Hartmann
came visiting the Kellners, he would never take an ordinary Viennese taxi
(pulled by two horses), but used a far cheaper one-horse hansom-cab. Unlike
the taxis, the hansom-cab-drivers had no union in those days, and hence no
fixed scale of fares - their payment was "at the passenger's discretion".
So when Hartmann reached his destination he would generally make a great
show of rummaging about in his pockets, until he found the smallest
possible coin. This he handed to the driver with a limp gesture, and the
words "There you are, my good fellow" - whereupon the enraged cabman would
often as not pour a stream of choice Viennese invective down on the stingy
Hartmann's greasy head; one of his nicknames among Theosophists was "Dirty
Franz".
Not only did Hartmann persuade Kellner and his wife to join the
Theosophical Society, but he also introduced Kellner to a number of
interesting Indian figures. For example, in 1896 a "Mr. Bheema Sana Pratapa
from Lahore" is mentioned in a booklet on Yoga published by Kellner, as
being introduced by Kellner and Hartmann to a Psychological Congress in
Munich, where he gave a demonstration of Yogic practices. Kellner not only
paid Mr. Pratapa's travel and hotel bills, but also presented Hartmann with
a sinecure at about this time, appointing him Director of the Lahmann
Sanatorium in Hallein, which he owned. Here people suffering from
tuberculosis and whooping-cough were given treatment for their ailments by
Kellner's (patented) 'Ligno-Sulphite-Inhalation' method - the shrewd
Kellner had devised the therapy to use up by-products from the paper
factory in Hallein; he had observed that the workers in his paper-mill
rarely got chest-colds, working in its ligno-sulphite laden steamy
atmosphere. Whether the therapy worked or not, the sanatorium seems to have
been a success under Hartmann's direction; allegedly, Gustav Meyrink,
author of the famous novel 'The Golem' was a patient there. Kellner
certainly felt grateful to Hartmann for his efforts, for in 1904, shortly
before he travelled to Egypt for convalescence after a serious illness, the
still-weak Kellner made a special effort to have a commemorative medal with
Hartmann's portrait on it struck, in honour of his friend's work at the
Lahmann Sanatorium.
Kellner's 'oral history'
There can be little doubt that Kellner belonged to something called the
Theosophical Society in Vienna, albeit a Theosophical Society that was
strongly influenced by Franz Hartmann. Nevertheless, the name Carl Kellner
does not appear to be recorded in the archives at Adyar (Theosophy's world
headquarters, where all members of the organisation are registered); so
Hartmann's society may not have been an 'official' Theosophical body. There
is also a mystery about which Rosicrucian group he belonged to; despite his
avowed interest in and enthusiasm for Rosicrucianism, there are no records
of his ever having belonged to any of the Masonic or neo-Rosicrucian groups
that were flourishing in Europe at the end the 19th century; possibly it
was an otherwise unknown or irregular body devised by Hartmann - I simply
do not know. But he definitely had contacts with a number of different
American Rosicrucian organisations.
What I put before the reader now has should be be treated with caution,
because there is little or no documentary evidence for it. It is
essentially 'oral history', which can be believed or not. The year 1895 is
of particular significance here. According to Theodor Reuss, this was when
Kellner proposed the founding of an 'Academia Masonica'; a name which he
soon afterwards changed into 'Ordo Templi Orientis' (O.T.O.). According to
Reuss, Kellner recieved the occult knowledge that he used as the basis for
the O.T.O. from an American group called the 'Hermetic Brotherhood of
Light'. Whether Reuss's statement can be believed or not remains doubtful;
P.R. Koenig, who has produced the definitive history of the O.T.O., has
good reason to be highly sceptical, though I have more confidence in the
story's value. I certainly don't think that oral history should be
dismissed out of hand without weighty counter-arguments, though admittedly,
I am aware that this is straying close to the borderlands between
historical fact and fiction.
High Noon
We are now able to return to documented fact, and the American Rosicrucians
with whom Kellner had some association: Freeman B. Dowd re-founded (or so
he said) the 'Temple of the Rosy Cross' at Philadelphia in 1895. Dowd was
heir to Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825-1875) an occultist who advocated the
use of sexual techniques and mirror-magic; Randolph was an occult opponent
of HPB, and alleged initiate of the mysterious 'Alewites'; he had also
founded something called the 'Brotherhood of Eulis' (id est 'Eleusis').
Dowd was a member of the 'H.B. of L.' ('Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor')
which it can be assumed was the forerunner of the 'Brotherhood of Eulis'.
This line of succession leads to the founding of the 'Societas Rosicruciana
in America' in 1908, and finally to Reuben Swinburne Clymer (1878-1966) and
his 'Rosy Cross' organisation. Writing in 1908, Sylvester Clark Gould
(co-founder of the 'Societas Rosicruciana') described a remarkable event
which took place at Boston in 1895. He said that twelve exalted occult
personalities assembled on the roof of that city's tallest building, and
raising their hands to the open sky at twelve noon precisely, ceremonially
proclaimed the founding of the 'Hermetic Brotherhood of Light'. This
organisation was not, Gould claimed, the same as the 'Hermetic Brotherhood
of Luxor' but it was linked to Randolph's Rosicrucian succession. Although
Gould does not report the names of these founders, one of the twelve was
allegedly Carl Kellner; in 1895, as I said before, Kellner assumed the
title of Doctor of Philosophy, and in the same year he started to conceive
his so-called 'alchemical' workings.
The Masonic Express
According to both Hartmann and the oral history, Kellner was initiated as a
Freemason in 1873 at the Humanitas border-lodge in Neudörfl, then within
the borders of Hungary. He adopted the motto or alias of Renatus -
're-born', for his initiation. Hartmann (whose motto was Emanuel) called
the place 'Neuhäusl' in his June 1905 obituary of Kellner, printed in
Theodor Reuss's Oriflamme magazine - but his memory may not have been very
accurate.
The so-called 'border-lodges' had come into being because of the double
constitution adopted by Austria and Hungary in 1867. Franz Josef, the
Habsburg emperor who had been enthroned in 1848, was not monarch of a
single country, but reigned over a loose union of two states - the only
things they had in common were taxation, foreign policy, and armed forces.
The kingdom of Hungary had a liberal constitution; while the 'cislatin'
provinces of Austria were much more conservatively, not to say repressively
administered. The Hungarian model of parliamentary democracy had raised the
hopes of German-speaking liberals in Austria that social and political
reform was possible. One sign of this was that a number of provinces in
Austria had re-legalised Masonry, which had been banned ever since the
revolution of 1849, when Vienna was occupied by the troops of Prince
Windischgrätz.
Attempts to get Masonic lodges approved under the Austrian laws of 1867
failed however, because paragraph 18 of the Social Code of laws required
all such bodies to be supervised by a government commission. Despite
repeated attempts to organise themselves, the commission's interference
dogged the would-be Austrian Freemasons' efforts at every step. But
Hungarian law had already permitted the first lodges there: at Pesth in
1868, and at Ödenburg in 1869. A writer called Franz Julius Schneeberger
then had the ingenious idea of establishing lodges in Hungary, near the
border with Austria, so that anyone wanting to be a Freemason could live in
Austria, but easily nip over the border to attend Lodge-meetings in
Hungary, away from the prying eyes of bureaucracy. Thus, after the founding
of the Humanitas lodge on the 9th of March 1871 in Austria, the lodge was
actually inaugurated on the 25th of February 1872, over the border in
Neudörfl (which today is back in Austria again, near Vienna Neustadt).
When Carl Kellner was admitted to Humanitas in 1873, the lodge was
undergoing something of a crisis. The founding Master of Humanitas was the
same Franz Schneeberger who had invented the 'border lodge', but many of
the brethren had become dissatisfied with both him and his lodge. In 1874,
two groups of dissident members left Humanitas and founded new lodges
(Zukunft and Sokrates) at Pressburg near Bratislava in Slovakia, which was
then part of Hungary. In 1880 Humanitas too followed suit, and moved to
Pressburg, which became the major centre for 'expatriate' Viennese Masonry.
The dissidents' main complaint was that travelling to their lodge-meetings
over the border at Neudörfl had proved both inconvenient and
time-consuming. To reach their lodge's temple there, they had to take the
slow steam-hauled Southern Line train-service to Vienna Neustadt, and there
change to a coach which then took them on to Neudörfl. But the centre of
Pressburg was much more easily reached by a fast new electric railway-line
from Vienna, one of the first such in the world, which only took one hour.
The Pressburg railway took good particularly good care of its passengers:
the Masonic brethren had specially reserved cars on the trains; at
Pressburg station, the trains would be held until the end of lodge
meetings, the train's guard always waiting until the last brother was
safely on board before giving the signal to start. This pioneering line
does not exist any longer, though I knew it when it was still running.
Kellner seems to have enjoyed his membership of ordinary Masonry in
Humanitas for about a decade; but by 1886 he had turned to 'higher degree'
and more esoteric masonry in the form of the 'irregular' Rites of Memphis
and Misraim. An irregular Masonic rite is one which is not recognised by a
country's Grand Lodge - the Masonic 'establishment', if you will. The
so-called 'Ancient and Primitive Rites of Memphis and Misraim' were a
series of no fewer than ninety-five ritual degrees, that had originated in
France at the start of the 19th century. One version of these eventually
came under the control of a Masonic scholar from Manchester called John
Yarker; however, by the end of the century, Yarker had fallen on hard
times, and started supporting himself by selling initiations into the
Rites, and impressively-printed Charters granting permission to work the
Memphis and Misraim degrees in various territories, to the highest bidder.
When he became mixed up in the dubious business of selling bogus academic
honours, most 'regular' Masonic bodies shunned further association with
him; especially in the English-speaking world, he became a Masonic pariah.
However, the position of Yarker's Rites in Europe was much less clear-cut.
It is possible that Kellner's migration to the Rites had something to do
with the quarrels in Neudörfl - his name does not appear in the membership
list of Humanitas for 1886. His Memphis-Misraim lodge was called Phoenix
zur Wahrheit, and was situated in the valley of Hamburg [see facsimile
reprinted in P.R. Koenig's Materialien zum
OTO]. After Kellner's death it separated from Theodor Reuss and became regularized.
Not a whisper of the O.T.O. from Kellner
Theodor Reuss wrote in the so-called 'Jubilee' issue of the Oriflamme
(1912), of how Kellner, having made contact with the 'Hermetic Brotherhood
of Light' on his travels, contacted Reuss with his scheme for the 'Academia
Masonica' which would make the knowledge of all existing masonic degrees
and systems available to aspiring brothers. In the course of their
meetings, Kellner apparently discarded the original name in favour of
calling his proposed body the 'Oriental Templars', citing certain "reasons
and documents" of which, however Reuss says precisely nothing. The earliest
possible date for Kellner's idea to have been realised was 1902. But (and
one wonders why this is so) no other contemporary record of Kellner and
Reuss's activities speaks about 'Oriental Templars'; the only title
mentioned is that of 'Academia Masonica', supposedly dropped several years
earlier. This 'Academia Masonica' was now organised on the lines of the
Memphis and Misraim Rite.
In the previously-mentioned obituary of Kellner, dated June 1905 and
printed in Reuss's Oriflamme, Hartmann described the 1895 conversations
between Kellner and Reuss in completely different terms. But Hartmann was
most certainly not present at the 1895 meetings, while Reuss equally
certainly was. Hartmann's story concentrates on Memphis and Misraim alone,
and he believed that 'Frater Merlin' (Kellner) together with Reuss, was
intending to introduce into Germany the higher-degree Masonry in which
Kellner had achieved "the greatest possible number of high degrees and
dignities during his far and frequent journeys through England and
America". In 1902 "this plan was put into action" when Kellner "in December
of this same year was personally initiated in Manchester by Brother Yarker
into the 96°, and made Sovereign Honorary General Grand Master of our
Order". So that was the end of that!
The relevant charter, which I have seen, is dated the 27th of December 1902
- the Feast of St. John the Evangelist - and refers to "The Ancient and
Primitive Rite", that is Misraim united with Memphis. There is no mention
of any O.T.O. (I have examined the paper very carefully several times) [It
is possibly going to be published in a forthcoming book by Peter-R. Koenig]. I
have also never seen any document issued during Kellner's lifetime that
mentions the O.T.O., or which gives evidence of such a body; Kellner died
on the 7th of June 1905. I fail absolutely to understand the date that is
given by Karl R.H. Frick in his second volume of Die Erleuchteten which
says that the O.T.O was founded on "1 September 1901". Where has the name
that Kellner allegedly devised in 1895, "Oriental Templars" vanished to?
But Reuss mentions the 'Hermetic Brotherhood of Light' again in his 1912
Oriflamme. Reuss writes that their "Rosicrucian esoteric teachings have
been reserved for the few initiates of the Occult Inner Circle. The grades
of Illumination of this Inner Circle of Initiates run parallel to those of
the highest degrees of the Memphis and Misraim Rite" (therefore
they are seperate from, and do not belong to this rite) and that "these initiates
comprise the secret foundation of the Oriental Order of Templars".
All these documents quite unambiguously name Kellner as the leader of this
'Occult Inner Circle'. But it remains uncertain whether there were other
"Inner Circles"; for example, there were the 'Esoteric Rosicrucians'
obviously under the leadership of Reuss [P.R. König: Maybe Dvorak is
confising Hartmann's 'Esoteric Rosicrucians' with the Societas Rosicruciana
in America?]. It was Reuss who claimed to have received his occult
knowledge completely independently from Kellner, yet from the same sources,
and here I am thinking about Randolph's sex-magical Rosicrucianism. The
recruitment of suitable candidates for these initiatory groups or 'steps of
illumination' apparently happened like this: Kellner or Reuss told the
masons of all the ordinary Masonic rites to which they belonged or over
which they had control "The purely symbolic work which you do in
your rituals is not the whole truth. The symbols have a practical occult meaning
which we can provide." The knowledge - and this is always stressed
- did NOT come from the Rite of Memphis-Misraim itself, but from "outside", and
it was NOT given within Memphis-Misraim, but in parallel. There would seem
to have been only a few initiates to this parallel knowledge, because even
important higher-degree members did not know what was going on.
But the Grand Secretary of Memphis-Misraim under Reuss, Emil Adriányi (who
later became Reuss's sworn enemy) wrote to Rudolf Steiner on the 8th of
September 1906 that "after thorough study" of the three rites -
Scottish-Cerneau, Memphis, and Misraim - of Reuss's Order, he could not
find any signs of practical occult exercises. But Adriányi stated that when
Reuss discussed this with Kellner, they then mixed "some exercises of some
chosen Inner Circle with the current A.Pr.Rite". "A.Pr." here means
'Ancient and Primitive'. It was, in other words, the Memphis-Rite (to which
alone, strictly speaking, the title of 'Ancient and Primitive' applied) and
not the Rite of Misraim. Only in 1906 did it become known what this 'Inner
Circle' meant, when Reuss published his "Constitution" of the O.T.O. dated
the 22nd of January, and his German version dated 21 June of the same year.
On the 24th of June 1906, when Reuss separated the Scottish Rite, Misraim,
and Memphis from each other, he also used the expression "Sovereign Master
of the Order of Oriental Templar-Freemasons". After the Christian date A.D.
1906 he added the Templar date A.O. (that is, Anno Ordinis) 788.
Steiner takes over Misraim — [See also: Rudolf Steiner:
Never a member of any O.T.O.]
In Easter 1906, Rudolf Steiner - later to achieve wider fame as the founder
and inspiring spirit of Anthroposophy - received permission from Reuss to
establish "a Chapter and a Supreme Council of Adoptive Masonry under
the name 'Mystica Æterna'" in Berlin. We learn the name of the
particular rite that this body was to work in Reuss's 'Edict' to Steiner dated the 15th of
June 1907, wheere Steiner was made "Independent Acting
Grandmaster-General". It was Misraim and not Memphis which,
according to Adriányi, had been mixed with the "odd" exercises. Memphis remained under
the control of with Reuss, who now used on his stationary the heading
"Order of Oriental Templars and Esoteric Rosicrucians".
In the Allgemeine Satzung (General Charter) of the O.T.O. one can read that
under this name "an international Society has been re-organised and
re-constituted". But which society is meant? I quote from the extant
'Monte Vérità' version of the O.T.O.'s Constitution, which dates from 1917:
"The 'Hermetic Brotherhood of Light'." But it goes on to say that
"The totality of the degrees of the O.T.O. constitute an 'Academia Masonica'."
Thus the circle is closed; it does not contain Steiner at all; Steiner never was in
the O.T.O.'s chain of succession.
Kellner as 'spiritual father' of the O.T.O.
There is one further small piece of (admittedly highly dubious) evidence
about this confusing matter: in 1914, when Reuss wrote a critical review of
Eberhardt's book on irregular German Masonry Winkellogen in Deutschland, he
stated that in 1905 he had had a metal plate put up by the front door of
his house in Berlin, inscribed with the title 'Sovereign Sanctuary of the
Order of Oriental Templars'. [Remark by P.R. Koenig: is that Order of
'Memphis'?]. There were Kellner family memories of something similar at his
Hohe Warte villa in Vienna: on the front of the house there was said to be
a metal plaque which referred to the 'tantric secrets'. But absolutely
nothing of this nature can be found on photographs of the villa during
Kellner's occupancy, or in the detailed records of Kellner's estate and
properties; and I think it is unnecessary to burden the reader with further
speculation.
I think that one may draw the following conclusions: Carl Kellner can be
seen as the 'spiritual father' of the O.T.O., through his enthusiasm for
the occult, his advocacy of Yoga and Eastern thought, and his continued
interest in Freemasonry. His 'spiritual son' Reuss, was steeped in the
atmosphere of these subjects; but often sons do not follow up their
father's intentions. Whether Reuss completely understood everything he was
taught or told by Kellner, and how much the secret teachings of the O.T.O.
were his own invention, or inherited from Kellner, we simply cannot tell on
the basis of the available evidence. At all events, in his Last Will and
Testament (dated the 20th of December 1922), Reuss defended his "teachings"
that had been "passed on from Dr. Carl Kellner".
Yoga and Indian clubs
It also remains very doubtful whether Kellner taught sex-magic, although it
is certain that he did teach Yoga - his expertise on the subject was known
and recognised in scholarly circles. William James mentioned Kellner, in a
footnote to his The Varieties of Religious Experiences of 1902, as "a
European witness" on Yoga. It is James who made the psychology of religions
a respectable academic subject, although he completely denied he had any
specific religious feelings himself; his theory of religious experience was
developed further by the influental Chicago school of comparative theology.
Carl Kellner was especially interested in Hatha-Yoga, the 'Yoga of bodily
effort', which is the variety most commonly practised in the West today.
Within Theosophy, starting with HPB, and later including Kellner's friend
Franz Hartmann, Hatha-Yoga had a bad reputation, being considered as little
better than 'Black Magic' - though quite why this should have been so is
hard to see, unless H.P.B.'s fatness and Hartmann's sloth prejudiced them
against it. The complicated body postures of Hatha-Yoga certainly required
a degree of fitness; and Kellner got himself into very good physical shape
with the help of Georg Jagendorfer, popularly known as the "strongest man
in Vienna", and internationally famous for his system of training by
swinging indian clubs. Jagendorfer ran a gymnasium in central Vienna, where
he taught not only indian club-swinging, but also wrestling and boxing.
Kellner achieved such strength and physical prowess under Jagendorfer that
it was claimed he could compete with the drey-men of the Viennese
breweries, fearsomely brawny types who heaved immensely heavy barrels of
beer about with consummate ease. Kellner equipped each of his homes with
small gymnasia, where Jagendorfer gave private training to both him and his
children. Relations between Herr Doktor Kellner and the athlete were most
affable; after each lesson, Jagendorfer would be invited to sit down in the
Kellner family kitchen for an ample repast of a whole roast chicken and a
bottle of wine. The interest in sports, keep-fit and athletics had reached
central Europe in the mid-1880s, being imported from England and the USA.
Before long, in such cities as Prague and Vienna, many societies had been
set up by enthusiasts for 'English athleticism', the most distinguished of
which was the 'Vienna Athletic Sports Club'. Kellner and Jagendorfer were
among its members; its president was a friend of Kellner's called Victor
Silberer (born 1846), who was editor-in-chief of the Allgemeine
Sport-Zeitung and who later had a distinguished career as a municipal
councillor in Vienna, and a Member of Parliament; Silberer and Kellner were
both also enthusiastic equestrians. Silberer is considered as Austria's
aeronautical pioneer: in 1885 he founded the 'Vienna Aeronautical
Institute', and in 1901 the 'Vienna Aero-Club'. His son Herbert (1882-1923)
inherited his father's interests, setting distance and height records in
balloon-flight. Herbert was also a freemason and psychoanalyst who (in
parallel with C.G. Jung) did pioneering research on the psychology of
mysticism, alchemy, hermetics, Rosicrucianism and occultism; he was for a
short time engaged to one of of Carl Kellner's daughters. Victor Silberer
wrote glowingly of the indian club-swinging exercises, which were very
highly esteemed by Carl Kellner as training for the breathing-techniques of
Hatha Yoga:
"It strengthens the whole chest as does no other form of exercise; it
greatly improves the breathing; it immensely increases the activity of the
lungs and heart, in a healthy and harmless way; and it stretches the thorax
and its muscles. In brief, it makes it possible for those of sedentary
habits or occupation to obtain essential bodily stimulation and activity."
Hatha-Yoga
There is good evidence that the indian club methods would make a good
complement to some of the postures of Hatha-Yoga. Take Siddhasana, the
'perfect posture' about which the Hatha-Yoga-Pradipika says: "A Yogi
who eats moderately for 12 years and considers the Atman, always sitting in the
Siddhasana, achieves completion." (I, 40). In this 'perfect
posture' there are three 'seals' which are kept 'closed': the throat area is 'closed' by
means of realaxing the the chin and slowly lowering it onto the chest,
which also keeps the blood pressure low. The torso is 'closed' from below
by means of pressure of the heel against the perineum; this stimulates the
blood circulation. The 'middle seal' is closed by raising the stomach-area
together with the diaphragm and directing it towards the spine. Once
achieved, this posture is held to stabilise the torso, and is used together
with breath-control techniques as the bassis for other Yogic exercises.
I have already mentioned that Carl Kellner wrote a short book about Yoga;
it was published under the title Yoga - Eine Skizze über den
psycho-physiologischen Teil der alten indischen Yogalehre - 'An outline of
the psycho-physiological element of ancient Indian Yoga teachings' - he
dedicated it to the 1896 Third International Congress on Psychology, held
in Munich (it has been reprinted in my book Satanism). The sole example of
a Yoga posture that Kellner gives in this work is the extremely well-known
Padmasana (lotus posture). He evidently considered the more complex and
difficult postures "which are practised by so-called contortionists in our
circuses or Music- Halls" as not being practicable for we "Westerners".
Kellner quotes the "sage Patanjali", writer of the classical Yoga-Sutra:
"Posture is what is firm and comfortable", with, by the way, a
wrong source of citation (he says it comes from Sloka 4 instead of Sloka 46). I mention
this because Kellner's booklet is so full of proof-reading and
printing-errors, that it has undoubtedly led to much later mistaken
speculation about hidden connotations of sex-magic. Oddly, Theodor Reuss
[P.R.K.: and Aleister Crowley too, see below] took not the slightest notice
of these mistakes, but reproduced them wholesale. An example; all standard
authorities on Yoga speak of the sixth Vayu - one of the so-called Yogic
'winds' - as being responsible for different inner and outer bodily
functions. Yet in both Kellner's Yoga booklet, and in Reuss's Oriflamme,
this 'wind' is called Napa, and allegedly "performs fertilisation".
On page 22 of the 1912 'Jubilee issue' of the Oriflamme, in the paragraph
headed 'Mysteria Mystica Maxima', which refers largely to Aleister
Crowley's branch of the O.T.O., Kellner's Yoga booklet is quoted from and
commented upon: "Sexual Magic is focussed on the 6th Vayu, Napa, in
the
so-called 'reproductive organs'. This exercise is called 'transmutation of
the reproductive energy'." But the expression "Napa" does not exist
at all [as Oscar
Schlag found out].
When the Sanskrit expert Rama Prasad translated the relevant chapter of the
Tantric text the Shivagama into English for Madame Blavatsky in 1889, the
sixth Vayu is called Naga and is attributed as the cause of burping! And
there is another discrepancy: in Kellner's booklet the "eighth wind,
Krikara" causes "sneezing", but the Shivagama says it causes "hunger".
Misunderstandings caused by typographical errors aside, it might just be
possible that these differences were due to Kellner having found and used
another, as yet unknown Tantric tradition - but I think it much more likely
that he simply did not translate his sources correctly. There is no
evidence of sexual magic in connection with the Vayus in Kellner's
writings, either Napa or Naga.
Buried alive!
Theodor Reuss claimed in his writings that Carl Kellner learnt the basis of
the O.T.O.'s sexual magic at the feet of the Arab Soliman ben Aissa, and
the Indians Bheema Sena Pratapa, and Sri Mahatma Agamya Guru Paramahamsa.
What, in fact, did Kellner learn from 'Oriental Adepts'?
In his book on Yoga, Kellner writes in the most generalised and idealistic
terms. For instance, when defining the term Mudra, Kellner speaks of a
"concentration of the attention upon one of the afore-mentioned Vayus".
Kellner writes that Yoga renders "the true disciple" into a "good, healthy
and happy man" and "opens up great new horizons" to him. Through mastery of
body and mind, the Yogi becomes a "man of character". Because he turns his
impulses and inclinations by willpower towards doing good, he turns into a
supreme individual who cannot be manipulated by others; effectively the
opposite of what the Western mind would define as a 'medium'. Yet, Kellner
was one of those who interpreted Yoga as a method of autohypnosis (that is,
focusing attention upon one point). Yoga, he asserted, was "the ability to
cause all the effects of somnambulism through willpower, constant exercise,
and asoociated habits". Psychologically seen, Kellner claimed, Yoga can be
viewed as a method of producing quantitative stimulation of the conscious
mind; it could likewise cause altered states of consciousness; and also
produce unconsciousness, going through the stages of dozing, sleep, stupor
and finally coma. The yogic counterparts are: concentration (dharana),
meditation (dhyana) and inward contemplation (samadhi). To illustrate this,
Kellner gave descriptions of the trance-states he had seen produced at the
demonstrations of Yogis visiting Europe at that time.
Kellner mentions one of these, Sri Mahatma Agamya Guru Paramahamsa, as
travelling with him to both Munich and Oxford to meet Professor Friedrich
Max Müller. This formidable and famous academic was the founding father of
comparative theology, and editor of the Sacred Books of the East series of
translations, an immense scholarly enterprise which made a huge quantity of
Oriental literature available in English for the first time. Kellner also
mentioned witnessing Indian fakirs who put themselves into "a lethargy
similar to a state of suspended animation." In this connection it is
interesting to note Franz Hartmann's account of the case of the Bengali
fakir Haridas. Haridas was capable of putting himself into a cataleptic
state, lowering his breathing and heartbeat to almost nothing, and had
himself buried alive, staying underground for forty days after which he was
'resurrected' from his grave alive and well. He attempted this feat four
times between 1828 and 1836; but alas, after the last try poor Haridas was
found to be dead when they dug him up. Haridas used the
Hatha-Yoga-Pradipika techniques called 'eating the cow' and 'sealing the
throat'. During 'eating the cow', the tongue is swallowed to close off the
windpipe, while 'sealing the throat' involves lowering the chin onto the
chest whilst contracting the throat-muscles, and using the willpower to
influence the breath and heartbeat. Hartmann of course intended the story
as a dire warning of the terrible dangers of Hatha-Yoga...
Kellner's attitude to Yoga
Kellner's essay clearly shows that he disapproved of such "mad methods";
furthermore, he says very little about the actual philosophy of Yoga. So he
makes no mention of the contentious and highly dualistic Samkhya teaching
with which Patanjali's classic the Yoga-Sutra is linked, though he quotes
Patanjali with approval on other matters. Nevertheless, in the garden of
his villa at Hohe Warte in Vienna, there was a large statue which some have
interpreted as a monument to the dualism of nature and soul
(Prakriti-Purusha). On the other hand, as can be seen from his notes,
Kellner closely identified himself with the monism of the Vedic
Atman-Brahman formula and the Vedantic Advaita. Kellner had the word OM
engraved on the silver handle of his walking-stick. Hartmann also favoured
OM as the word-symbol of Brahma, and of the pure fourth and highest state
(turiya) of Yoga that is realised in samadhi; wide-awake activity without
experience of the ego. As Kellner says, the consciousness of separate being
stops, and the "Seer and the Seen become one" [P.R.K.: as Reuss also
wrote]. Raja-Yoga as practised within Theosophy (as opposed to Hatha-Yoga),
is defined by Kellner as "the direct union of the separate consciousness
with the All-consciousness", and it delivers "the suggestion of
a self-induced somnambulant state, which is then accompanied by an
inexpressible feeling of happiness, influenced by the sublime and holy
object."
Kellner personally preferred the eightfold way of Samyana, an epitomising
of the three "inner Yoga grades" Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi
(concentration, meditation and contemplation). This doctrine occurs in
Patanjali's Yoga Sutra where it teaches the yoga of self-denial, and is
also found in theistic Yoga and Samapatti meditation. The performance of
Pratyahara (mastering the senses by will) and Samyana combined with Mudra
(posture and gesture) might be viewed as a Yogic way of practicing
shamanism, aimed at the achievement of supernatural powers (Siddhis) like
invisibility, stopping thirst and hunger, bodily perfection, power over the
material, and so forth. But Kellner describes Pratyahara with the example
of a hypnotised subject who can't tell the difference between a raw potato
and a sweet pear. According to Kellner, the "true Yogi" aimed at
"salvation" and should consider these magical powers merely as troublesome
by-products.
Kellner's past lives
In a handwritten manuscript titled 'Reincarnations' (which seems to have
been one of a series; the number "3" is added to the title) [to be
published in a forthcoming book by P.R. Koenig: online at The Carl Kellner Website ] Kellner gives us some
insight into one of his exercises in Sanayama, aimed at discovering his
earlier incarnations. Once he has settled in his posture (Asana), and his
breathing is under control (Pranayama), he sees an azure flame appearing to
his inner eye (Pratyahara); he holds this vision in his mind (Dharana), and
then descends into the flame (Dhyana). Once he feels that he has reached
Samadhi, he casts his mind back into time, and sees himself clothed in a
yellow robe with a hood over his face, like a Tibetean monk. He has not
gone back to Tibet however, but has arrived in the Middle East "during one
of the great starry nights of Chaldea in old Babylon". He is a priest, yet
married; his wife, "slender, but also richly formed" is "clothed in
gorgeous silks" [P.R.K.: doesn't this remind you of Crowley's Nuit?]. Then
he sees himself performing his priestly duties as "a servant of Schamaja",
and climbs up a tower to light a sacrificial fire to his Goddess. At this
point, the vision starts to blur: the firelight seems to be the same as the
light of the stars, and is identified with the Sun, the "light of his
life", indeed with the life "of all my brothers and sisters". He then
chants "the old benediction in Aramaic: morning breaks.", and with this,
the journey into the past comes to an end. Kellner's vision is not simply a
case of 'letting his imagination go for a walk' but is intermingled with
various associations; though it seems no more and no less remarkable than a
myriad other such accounts. It is of course possible to give a
psycho-analytical interpretation to the vision: it has been claimed that
his rising up to sacrifice at the fire represents a sexual-tantric act of
Kundalini-Yoga - but that is surely straining credibility well beyond
breaking-point. If Kellner had been a practitioner of sexual rites, surely
we would find more definite evidence of it in such a private manuscript,
than through a highly dubious psychological re-interpretation? The other
records of his past lives given in the manuscript are distinguished only by
their dullness: in one, he finds he has become a pupil of Plato, and the
other, he has become an an athlete. It was in this account that Kellner
gave himself the name "Renatus".
Snakebite on the tongue
In his Yoga book Kellner writes that under certain circumstances Hatha-Yoga
can be very dangerous. So he counsels that the would-be Yogin should "never
try the exercises without the guidance of an experienced instructor (the
Indians call him a 'guru')." As we have seen, three men are mentioned as
Kellner's gurus: an Arab, and two Indians, one of them the aforementioned
Bheema Sena Pratapa from Lahore. We have the testimony of Gustav Meyrink,
given in an article he wrote in 1907, as to the character of these three;
and very few good words he had to say about them. There was "the
invulnerable head waiter Hadji Soliman ben Aissa of Lyons, who had himself
bitten in the tongue by harmless adders"; then there was "Pratapa who, in
Budapest, held his breath for two hours"; and finally the "bogus Brahman
Agamya", who "not only stopped his heartbeat, but also halted logic and any
regard for the truth among the journalists of Vienna and Berlin".
Indeed, it seems that all three of these men made stage-appearences in
several parts of Europe, often with financial help from the wealthy
Kellner. Kellner had a number of businesses and financial interests in
Bosnia, and it was on his trips there that he first developed his interest
in Islamic mysticism and Sufism; this might explain his acquaintanceship
with Hadji Soliman. About Pratapa, beyond the records of his stage-career,
nothing further is documented, except a photograph that shows him together
with Carl Kellner (I intend to publish this photograph in the future). Guru
Agamya's teachings are far better known; on his three European trips
between 1900 and 1903, he had meetings with scientists and academics in
both Cambridge and Oxford, and in 1905 he published a book entitled Sri
Brahma Dhara - 'Shower from the Highest' in London. Professor Max Müller of
Oxford (1823-1900) wrote respectfully of Agamya in August 1900, calling him
"the only Indian saint I have ever known". What the two Indians
demonstrated in their public appearances, and presumably before the amazed
eyes of the scholars of Oxford and Cambridge, is described in Kellner's
book on Yoga as "the stages of somnambulism from somnolence upwards". He
also described it as a form of catalepsy, and called it the "stage of
Nirvikalpa Samadhi". So Kellner equates contemplation (Samadhi) with Yogic
sleep (Yoga-Nidra). Nirvikalpa is in fact contemplation without
consiousness of the ego; for which (so other authorities on Yoga say) the
only possible expression is silence itself. They also state that preceding
this, there occurs a falsely joyous state known as Savikalpa Samadhi, which
needs to be overcome before true Samadhi is reached. One of the barriers
that must be passed here is called kashaya, the magic of seductive visions
of the past, and of people that one knows; and it is into this trap that
Kellner apparently fell.
The manuscript record of Kellner's Samayama meditation is filled with the
image of his wife, whom he recognised in the figure of the priest's own
wife: "Oh how beautiful! Yes, it is you - from those eyes the same dear
soul is shining." In 1912 the extreme right-wing conspiracy-theorist Jean
Paar Kellner wrote an article about Kellner, Reuss, Hartmann, and their
various Masonic and occult associations; most of the account is palpable
nonsense, but at one point a gleam of what may be the truth shines out of
the welter of innuendo about evil crypto-Communist conspiracies, and
accusations of secret Satanism: he quotes Kellner as confessing to
Hartmann: "I practise [my Yoga], I ascend a little way; but then I fall
from a great height. I am afraid of the legions of Guardians". Hartmann is
then said to have compared Kellner to Icarus "in whose myth it is told that
he tried to fly to the sun on wings made of wax. When the wings melted he
fell." This is highly remeniscent of Bulwer-Lytton's novel Zanoni, a great
favourite among occultists at the end of the 19th century; we know that it
was one of Kellner's favourite books, and it obviously coloured his
past-life visions. Its hero Glyndon (like Kellner "an aspirant to the stars
that shine in the Shemajá of the Chaldaean lore") is a prototype of the
literary occultist whose unsustainable aspirations outstrip his abilities -
another version of a Faust-figure.
Agamya's Atomic Yoga
Sri Mahatma Agamya Guru Paramahamsa came from the Punjab, and had had a
distinguished career in the law, rising to the dignity of a judge in
India's Supreme Court; until, in common with many other deeply religious
Hindus at the end of their professional lives, he decided to give up his
position in the Establishment, and become a Yogi. He was five years older
than Kellner, and was convinced that his present life was to be his last
incarnation on earth. He had evidently been influenced by recent
discoveries in physics, and had become a proponent of what he called
Paramanu Yoga ('Atomic Yoga'), a variation on the Vedantic school of Maya
Yoga. According to the Maya-Veda, which contains the teachings of the
'Prince' of Vedanta philosophy, Shankaracharya (fl. ca. 800 AD), the
diversity of the physical world is merely Maya, an illusion or enchantment
which conceals the One and Highest (Brahman). But Maya is also one of the
ways by which the Highest manifests itself. Agamya's idea was that Maya was
only a drop in the ocean of the One, a specially blessed vibrating
proto-atom whose activity constantly ferments new atoms. These new atoms
are said to coagulate together, producing a sort of scum, which constitutes
what we perceive as the reality of space and time; but this 'reality' is
itself an illusion. Agamya claimed that the atom is a storehouse of
incredible forces, which can be utilised by the Paramanu Yogi on his
journey to the Highest. These powers are the Siddhis released through
Samayama, for instance memories of earlier re-incarnations. In 'Atomic
Yoga', the Atom itself is used as the subject of contemplation (Kellner's
"azure flame"). The ultimate goal in Paramanu Yoga is Nirvikalpa-Samadhi,
the subsuming of all powers into the proto-atom, and Maya's disappearance
into the ocean of the Highest, or the consciousness of Brahman. The precise
methods by which the Yogi concentrated on these atomic powers, Agamya
transmitted only by word of mouth, and his pupils were forbidden to talk
publicly about them.
Kellner is cursed
According to Kellner's widow there was a huge quarrel between the Guru and
Carl Kellner at Hallein in 1903, at the end of which Agamya solemnly cursed
his errant pupil. It seems that Kellner had been caught 'telling tales out
of school', revealing some of Agamya's secret Yoga techniques for achieving
the Siddhis to the "Brothers and Sisters" of his "Occult Inner Circle".
Frau Kellner clearly remembered that one of these techniques was supposed
to confer the prolongation of life. Kellner's disastrous laboratory
accident, his serious illness of 1904, and his sudden death in 1905 were
believed by his widow to be the dire results of this curse. But both Reuss
and Crowley later claimed that Kellner's misfortunes were in fact a
consequence of using erroneous Yogic techniques, caused by amateurish
instruction given by the incompetent 'Guru' Agamya. Aleister Crowley's
loathing for Sri Mahatma Agamya is clearly shown in a piece printed in his
periodical The Equinox in September 1910, under the pen-name Sam Hardy (in
fact Crowley's disciple Colonel J.F.C. Fuller). The article describes
various meetings with the master of 'Atomic Yoga'; he cuts a very poor
figure, uttering reams of comical nonsense in broken English; finally Hardy
loses patience with his arrogance and hypocrisy, roundly cursing him in
Hindustani: "Chup raho! Tum suar ke bachcha ho!" (Shut up! You're a damned
pig!). Foaming at the mouth, the "666th incarnation of Haram Zada" (the
title of a legendary villain, a common Muslim insult) tries to kill Hardy,
but falls dead of an epileptic attack. while obviously an exaggerated
caricature, this account probably contained some grains of truth.
Rumours about Kellner's death
There has long been a legend current among German occultists that Kellner's
activities attracted malevolent spirits to his laboratory, and produced a
bad case of haunting by several ghosts - though as Virgil says, Fama
crescit eundo. The proto-Nazi conspiracy-theorist Jean Paar was the main
source of these stories, the wild claims he made in his 1912 book Weisse
und schwarze Magie often being cited. I have before me as I write a
newspaper-cutting from the Wiener Sonn-und Mondtagzeitung of the 4th of
August 1924, entitled "The Gold-Maker of the Hohe Warte: Dr. Karl [sic]
Kellner, His Assistant's Mysterious Death, and The Secret of Alchemy",
where Paar's opinions are quoted with approval, and two other bits of
disinformation are thrown in for good measure. The first of these concerns
the supposedly sinister significance hidden in the architecture of
Kellner's villa at Hohe Warte in Vienna, which had not then been
demolished; the second implies that though Kellner was an alchemist, he was
"not one of the right sort". Furthermore, "because he lacked the spiritual
skills needed for alchemy in its highest sense, all his hopes were
eventually wrecked, and he paid with his life". About the villa, the
clipping says "Anyone who cares to take a stroll up by the Hohe Warte these
days, will soon come across an odd villa whose pediments are adorned with
mysterious Cabbalistic signs. The ancient symbols of Alchemy can be seen,
together with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a motif also known to be
found in certain Parisian sanctuaries. It was in this villa that Kellner
died, due to his mysterious studies". The 'Parisian sanctuaries' are meant
to suggest that Kellner was mixed up Satanism. Later on we read "He became
as thin as a skeleton, locking himself away for days and nights at a time
in his laboratory. His death was nothing more than the bitter fruit of his
attempts to uncover the ultimate secret of alchemy."
Kellner's villa
There is still extant a photograph of Kellner's villa taken during his
lifetime, which shows a rather more prosaic reality; there is no sign of
any apocalyptic riders or cabbalistic symbols. There are two recognisably
Assyrian sphinxes at the front corners in of the flat roof - which was
quite an architectural innovation at the time. Around the observatory
[P.R.K.: on the left part of the roof] are the signs of the zodiac. In the
middle of the gable-end is an impressive bearded 'Baphomet' head, the
Templar idol. In my opinion this is meant as an allegory of the human mind
('Ras el Fahmat', the 'Nous poietikos' of Arabic Aristotelianism), which
links sun and moon, or male and female, in shakti-shaivitic Hatha-Yoga.
This is confirmed by the four-armed figure of a 'Phorminx' under the
bearded head. This did not appear in the architect's drawings, and is
plainly meant to be Shiva's vina or Kali's harp. Below that are seven round
plaques depicting musical scales, the planets, the principles of the soul,
and so for th. While the choice of figures is perhaps a little eccentric,
there is nothing out of the ordinary about Kellner choosing to decorate the
villa in this way; it was quite common for well-to-do Viennese to adorn
their houses with symbols associated with their profession or interests at
this time. The villa's architect was Massimo Fabiani, a close colleague of
the Vienna town-planner Otto Wagner, himself something of an Oriental
philosopher, and a friend of Kellner's ever since the Görz era.
Strictly speaking, the villa was not Kellner's property; he had given it as
a present to his wife Marie 'Antoinette' (she liked to identify herself
with the French queen). Marie was 14 year younger than Carl, and was a
scion of the Delorme family of Trieste, who were hoteliers. (Delorme means
'from the elm', and is the name of a town where the French poet Baudelaire
lived for some time). After Carl's death she remarried; her second husband
was 17 years younger than her, but survived Marie's death by only a year
and nine months. Marie Kellner was a skilled painter and photographer, and
was actively encouraged in these interests by her husband. Her descendants
still possess a brooch she wore as a member of a Memphis-Misraim 'Lodge of
Adoption';it depicts a Sphinx in front of a Pyramid [P.R.K.: a design
similar to the front page of Leopold Engel's magazine for the 'Order of
Illuminati' in 1900]. 'Adoptive Masonry' was the female counterpart of male
Freemasonry within Memphis-Misraim (as the 'Eastern Star' is to orthodox
Male masonry in the USA today). In Lodges of Adoption every new member was
sponsored by a Freemason; Marie's sponsor obviously being Carl - and on the
back of the brooch there is a portrait of Kellner. The family also still
have Marie Kellner's Theosophical book of meditations; on its flyleaf Carl
wrote a dedication to Marie in the form of a love-poem. In the text of the
book may be found Marie's annotations; in one of them she stressed "the
importance of the will for the spiritual life".
Kellner's alchemy
Though Kellner remained a skilled inventor to the end of his life, his
business acumen seems to have deserted him by 1903, for in that year he was
effectively ousted from the chairmanship of the Hallein company by the
other members of the board, and was compelled to resign as an executive.
This was not quite the misfortune it seems; he now had considerably more
spare time at his disposal, and was still in the lucrative position of
being a major shareholder. He was still head of his large and busy
laboratory in Vienna, which was definitely not in his Villa, contrary to
what has been written. After a farewell celebration at the Hallein factory
(evidently the shop-floor thought considerably more of Kellner than the
board-room did), he moved back to Vienna, and settled into his wife's
newly-finished villa, where he was able to devote much of his time to Yoga.
Not long afterwards came the falling-out with Agamya, and the curse,
followed in turn by the disastrous laboratory accidents, which killed one
of his assistants and badly injured Kellner. This had nothing at all to do
with malign spirits or ghosts, but was a direct consequence of his using
modern technology in an attempt to make alchemy work. Kellner had already
done some experiments on these lines at the company laboratory in Hallein
back in 1895 and 1896. Kellner believed that it was theoretically possible
to transform one element into another - or even to produce new and as yet
unknown elements. But this was not to be accomplished by the slow and
tortuous methods of traditional alchemy, but under conditions of very high
pressure, and by applying immense electrical voltages.
At the same time in America, a certain Dr. Stephen H. Emmens, an industrial
chemist and the inventor of a number of new types of explosive, was working
on similar lines. He theorised that it was possible to synthesise a metal
based on silver and gold, which he called "Argentaurum". He further
postulated that this new substance would be transmuted into silver if it
underwent sudden and extreme decompression, and would likewise change into
gold through the application of strong compression. In 1897 he had created
six ingots of a gold-silver alloy which he claimed was indeed this
remarkable Argentaurum. In 1899, the New York Herald splashed the story
under the headline "This Man Made Gold and Sold It To The US Mint! Is Dr.
Emmens a Modern Rosicrucian?"
Kellner had written a theoretical essay called The Origin of Species in the
Inorganic back in 1881 at Görz; unfortunately, the text of this study,
which would undoubtedly make for highly intriguing reading, is now lost. In
October 1896, Kellner submitted a scientific paper for the consideration of
the Academy of Science in Vienna, entitled Experimental Proof of the
Transformability of Basic Matter. It gave detailed descriptions of the
construction and operation of his high-pressure and high-voltage apparatus;
his main theory was that matter behaves like electricity at a low voltage
but a high current, while and energy reacts like electricity at a high
voltage and low current.
On the 24th of April 1902, Kellner reported to the Imperial High Academy of
Science in Vienna that he had succeded in creating (or isolating) a new
element with an atomic weight of 100. As a patriotic Austrian he had
decided to call it "Austrium", and had given it the chemical symbol "At".
Confronted with a specimen of Austrium, the savants of the High Academy
proved incapable of agreeing on just what it was that Kellner had come up
with. My own researches in the Academy's archives show that the specimen
was subsequently lost, which hardly demonstrates much scientific rigour.
Soon after this, Kellner himself became doubtful about what he had created
- was it an element, or (more likely) simply an extremely stable and inert
compound, given the circumstances of its creation? At all events, the
experiments were proving highly dangerous; even before the incident which
put him in hospital there were a number of explosions, and poisonings
caused by chemical leaks, at Kellner's laboratory.
After his accident in the laboratory, Kellner was kept in hospital for an
extended period - not only were his injuries serious enough to need a long
time to heal - but it should be remembered that this was before the
invention of effective antibiotics, and he would have been kept under
lengthy observation to ensure that no infections developed. No doubt his
strong constitution, developed with the aid of Indian clubs under
Jagerdorfer's tutelage helped him to turn the corner. Once he was well
enough to be discharged from hospital, he was obviously advised to
convalesce in a warm, dry place; hence he travelled to Egypt, accompanied
by his wife. The balmy climate of Egypt apparently completed the process of
recuperation, for when he and Marie returned to Vienna, Kellner seemed
quite his old self; he was able to throw himself back into his work at the
laboratory with enthusiasm. Yet just one month after his return, he came
home to the villa after a very busy day at the laboratory, no doubt to
Marie's annoyance requiring a late dinner. During the meal, he complained
of a bad attack of indigestion - but it soon became obvious that this was a
lot more serious than dyspepsia; he was having a heart-attack. Kellner knew
what to do in such cases, and injected himself with a tincture of camphor -
but it was of no avail; he was failing fast, and died at one o'clock in the
morning on the 7th of June, 1905. The pathologist's report stated the cause
of death as "Paralysis of the heart caused by chronic poisoning, due to
infection of the blood"; despite all the precautions taken at hospital,
there had still been an invisible infection present. was stated as the
cause of death. On the 9th of June, his body was taken to Hallein for the
funeral in a splendidly-appointed hearse, and was then buried in the family
grave at Oberalm. But in 1907, his remains were exhumed and cremated at
Munich; the ashes were then placed in an elaborate monument built in his
honour at the Hallein cemetery.
Carl Kellner's monumental tomb may still be found in the cemetery at
Hallein; it is doubtful if anyone pays it much attention nowadays, unless
it is to notice the rather unconventional symbols with which it is
decorated. [Photographs here and in P.R. Koenig's Ein Leben für die Rose
and
Flensburger Hefte 63]. The themes of this ornamentation seem to have been
strongly influenced by the ideas of Kellner's successor Theodor Reuss.
There can be little doubt that Reuss had made a substantial donation
towards the design and building of the tomb, because in 1907 no issues of
his magazine the Oriflamme appeared - there wasn't enough left in the Reuss
coffers to subsidise any publishing that year. The monument was designed by
the artist Wilhelm Heyda in a not unpleasing Art Nouveau style. It features
two praying angels, and pendant decorations of Templar crosses, triangular
'pyramids of fire', and two pillars inscribed 'Jachin' and 'Boaz'. But its
most important decoration is a sort of cult-icon in the form of a sculpted
image of the Virgin Mary, placed atop a sort of altar. It was obviously
designed in accord with ideas that Reuss promulgated within the O.T.O, for
this Mary, depicted in a strongly Art Nouveau manner, resembles not so much
the Virgin of Christian iconography, but the goddess Maya. She is shown
standing upon a crescent moon, a symbol of the freed soul overcoming the
bonds of matter; but this could also be taken as a symbol of a 'mystic
marriage' - body and mind cannot unite without the soul. Her pose is worthy
of remark as well: she holds the infant Jesus towards the lower half of her
body, and the child stretches out its arms in the form of a cross. This
strongly resembles the attitudes in which the Virgin and Child were
depicted by the heretical Bogomil sect; yet the symbolism is plain enough -
she embodies the life- affirming qualities of love.
Published by permission of Josef Dvorak.
- Josef Dvorak: Carl Kellner [collected gossips and speculations about Kellner's life, Franz Hartmann, Hatha Yoga and Baphomet].
- Deutsche Version: Carl Kellner.
- Türkçe çeviri: Carl Kellner.
This translation was kindly supported by Mark Parry-Maddocks
The grave of Carl Kellner
Back to the main page about Carl Kellner
More about all this in: Andreas Huettl and Peter-R. Koenig: Satan - Jünger, Jäger und Justiz
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