Leopold Engel was a German writer and occultist.

Early life

Engel was born in

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. His father was Karl Dietrich Engel (1824–1913), a violinist who in 1846 became Konzertmeister (leader) of the orchestra of the Imperial Russian Theatre.

Career

Leopold Engel went to

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, finally settling in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

where he wrote extensively on the

Faust legend Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroad ...

. He became a follower of mysticus

Jakob Lorber Jakob Lorber (22 July 1800 – 23 August 1864) was a Christian mystic and visionary from the Duchy of Styria, who promoted liberal Universalism. He referred to himself as "God's scribe". He wrote that on 15 March 1840 he began hearing an " inne ...

(1800–1864) who wrote ten volumes of "inspired" teachings. In 1891 Engel himself heard an "inner voice" which commanded him to write an 11th volume of Lorber's work, ''

The Great Gospel of John The ''Great Gospel of John'' (in the original German published as ''Das große Evangelium Johannis '' or ''Großes Evangelium Johannes'') is a neo-revelationist text by Jakob Lorber, extending to about 5,500 pages in print, published in ten vol ...

''. During the 1890s he became involved with

Theodor Reuss Albert Karl Theodor Reuss (; June 28, 1855 – October 28, 1923) also known by his neo-Gnostic bishop title of Carolus Albertus Theodorus Peregrinus was an Anglo-German tantric occultist, freemason, journalist, singer and head of Ordo T ...

in reviving the

Illuminati The Illuminati (; plural of Latin ''illuminatus'', 'enlightened') is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically, the name usually refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on ...

in Germany, setting up an irregular

masonic Freemasonry or Masonry refers to Fraternity, fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of Stonemasonry, stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their inte ...

lodge which they called the Ludwig Lodge. This and several other lodges they were active in were not recognised by any of the regular German Grand Lodges. This association came to an end on 3 July 1903 with Engel's expulsion along with his friend Siegmund Miller.

External links

Theodor Reuss: Irregular Freemasonry in Germany, 1900-23
by

Ellic Howe Ellic Paul Howe (20 September 1910 – 28 September 1991) was a British author who wrote extensively on occultism and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn as well as on typography and military history. During World War II he worked for Britain's ...

and Helmut Moller (Göttingen) *Wikisource
Leopold Engel: Geschichte des Illuminatenordens
(German) 1858 births 1931 deaths Russian occultists Russian male writers German occultists German male writers {{Russia-writer-stub