The Seven Wise Men
- Classification (Hynek): CE3.
- Witness: Facius Cardan.
- Time & Place: 8pm, Aug 13 1491.
- Entity Type (Lawson): Human.
- Craft: None.
- Summary: A Renaissance scholar is visited by philosophical humanoids.
A Kind of Men Made of Air
Lawyer and mathematician Facius Cardan was a espected Renaissance scholar who lectured on geometry at the University of Milan and counted Leonardo Da Vinci among his friends. It is to his credit that when seven colourful entities materialised in his study one August evening in 1491, rather than run screaming from the room, he engaged them in philosophical discussion.
A group of seven angels from an illuminated manuscript of the Book of Revelations.
"When I had completed my customary rituals, about the twentieth hour, seven men appeared to me, dressed in silken garments resembling togas, with glittering boots," he wrote in his journal. "They also sported a type of armour, and beneath this armour one could see purple garments of an extraordinary splendour and beauty."
"Two of them seemed to be of a more superior rank than the others. The one with the most commanding air had a face that was tanned dark red. They said that they were 40 years old, but none of them seemed more than 30."
"I asked who they were, and they replied that they were a kind of men, made of air and subject like ourselves to birth and death. Their life-span was longer than our own, and could extend as long as three centuries."
A Strange Theology
Orthon - George Adamski's angelic Venusian.
When Cardan questioned his visitors about the "immortality of the soul", they replied, "Nothing survives which is peculiar to the individual".
They explained that God "created the universe from moment to moment," so that "should He desist for an instant, the world would perish". (Although this claim contradicted contemporary scholastic cosmology, it echoes certain passages in the Hermetic texts then circulating among freethinking scholars.)
When asked why they did not "reveal to men the treasures of their knowledge", the visitors replied that "a special law imposed the heaviest penalties on them in the event that they did this".
The strange septet then dematerialised, leaving Cardan unsure whether he had been entertaining angels or demons.
Related External Links:
- The Orthon Cult
- Orthon - the angelic extraterrestrial with a fondness for colourful capes - causes a rumpus in Denmark.
Sources
Parrogan Press: Strange Encounters, pp46-47.
Jacques Vallee: Dimensions, pp20-21.