Order of Harmonists

Harmonist sign

Friedrich Müller as Senior Harmonist (1799)

The Order of Harmonists was a student order that was founded in Jena in 1764 at the time of the Enlightenment and dissolved in 1804.

history

The symbol was PNP - Post Nubila Phoebus . The customs were borrowed from the Scottish system of Freemasonry .

After a Jena pedigree dating back to 1766, the Harmonistenorden disintegrated into lodges and degrees. The degrees were apprentice, journeyman and master. In addition, four other degrees should have passed. It cannot be ruled out that the name of the order is related to the Leibniz - Wolff philosophy.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz established the principle of the pre-stabilized harmony of all world events. It made sense to apply the standard of harmony to the moral relationship of the individual. The harmonists also called themselves "Black Brothers" . The Jena lodge was called “Zum rothen Stein” . The Circle of the Order had seven points distributed.

Known members

• Friedrich von Müller (1779–1849), State Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach, a friend of Goethe
• Carl Christian Friedrich Glenck (1779–1845), German salinist, drilling specialist and entrepreneur
• Carl von Grolman (1775–1829), Prime Minister of the Grand Duchy of Hesse
• Johann Heinrich Kipp (1771–1833), German lawyer and politician, mayor of Lübeck
• Isaac von Sinclair (1775–1815), German diplomat and writer, friend of the poet Friedrich Hölderlin
• August von Herder (1776–1838), chief miner in Freiberg, godson of Goethe

Individual evidence

1. ↑ German: "After the clouds the light"
2. ^ Wilhelm Fabricius : Student order of the 18th century . Jena 1891

literature

• Karl Hoede: Guys out. As a reminder of the origins of the old boyhood. Frankfurt am Main 1962, pp. 47-49, 55.
• Hans Peter Hümmer : Harmonists (Black Brothers) , in: The family books of the Erlanger Westphalia Davidis . Einst und Jetzt , Vol. 46 (2001), pp. 123-131.
• Eugen Lennhoff, Oskar Posner, Dieter A. Binder : International Freemason Lexicon . Herbig, Munich 2000, ISBN 978-3-7766-2161-7 .

Web links

• Literature by and about orders of harmonists in the catalog of the German National Library
• Order of Harmonists (Masonic wiki)
• Leibniz-Wolff philosophy (PDF; 267 kB)