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Rosicrucians:
The idea of a Rosierueian Brotherhood has
probably aroused more interest in the popular
mind than that of any other secret society of
kindred nature: but that such a brotherhood ever
existed is still doubted by some authories. The
very name of Rosicrucian seems to have exercised
a spell upon people of an imaginative nature for
nearly two hundred and fifty years, and a great
deal of romantic fiction has clustered around
the fraternity: such as for example Lord
Lytton's romance of Zanoni; Shelley's novel St.
Irvyne the Rosierueian, Harrison Ainsworth's
Auriol, and similar works.
The name Rosierueian is utilised by mystics to
some extent as the equivalent of magus, but in
its more specific application it was the title
of a member of a suppositions society which
arose in the late sixteenth century. There are
several theories regarding the derivation of the
name. The most commonly accepted appears to be
that it was derived from the appellation of the
supposed founder, Christian Rosenkreuze ; but as
his history has been proved to be wholly
fabulous, this theory must fall to the ground.
Mosheim, the historian, gave it as his opinion
that the name was formed from the Latin words
ros, dew, crux a cross ; on the assumption that
the alchemical dew of the philosophers was the
most powerful dissolvent of gold, while the
cross was equivalent to light. It is more
probable that the name Rosierueian is derived
from rose, a rose, and crux a cross, and we find
that the general symbol of the supposed order
was a rose crucified in the centre of a cross.
In an old Rosierueian book of the last century,
we further find the symbol of a red cross-marked
heart in the centre of an open rose, which Mr.
A. E. Waite believes to be a development of the
monogram of Martin Luther, which was a
cross-crowned heart rising from the centre of an
open rose. History of the Supposed
Brotherhood.—Practically nothing definite was
known concerning the Rosierueian Brotherhood
before the publication of Mr. Waite's work The
real
History of the Rosicrucians in 1887, Prior to
that a great deal had been written concerning
the fraternity, and shortly before Mr. Waite
produced his well-known book another had made
its appearance under the title of The
Rosicrucians, their Rites and Mysteries by the
late Mr. Hargrave Jennings. This book was merely
a farrago of the wildest absurdities, rendered
laughable by the ridiculous attitude of tne
author, who pretended to the guardianship of
abysmal occult secrets. It was typical of most
writings regarding the fraternity of the Rosy
Cross, and as the Westminster Review wittily
remarked in its notice of the volume, it deals
with practically everything under tlie sun
except the Rosicrucians. Mr. Waite's work, the
result of arduous personal research, has
gathered together all that can possibly be known
regarding the Rosicrucians, and his facts are
drawn from manuscripts, in some cases discovered
by himself, and from skilful analogy. As it is
the only authority on the subject worth speaking
about, we shall attempt to outline its
conclusions.
We find then that the name " Rosierueian " was
unknown previously to the year 1598. The history
of the movement originates in Germany, where in
the town of Cassel in the year 1614 the
professors of magic and mysticism, the
theosophists and alchemists, were surprised by
the publication of a pamphlet bearing the title
The Fama of the Fraternity of the Meritorious
Order of the Rosy Cross Addressed to tlie
Learned in General and the Governors of Europe.
It purported to be a message from certain
anonymous adepts who were deeply concerned for
the condition of mankind, and who greatly
desired its moral renewal and perfection. It
proposed that all men of learning throughout the
world should join forces for the establishment
of a synthesis of science, through which would
be discovered the perfect method of all the
arts. The squab-blings and quarrellings of the
literati of the period were to be forgone, and
the antiquated authorities of the elder world to
be discredited. It pointed out that a
reformation had taken place in religion, that
the church had been cleansed, and that a similar
new career was open to science. All this was to
be brought about by the assistance of the
illuminated Brotherhood,—the children of light
who had been initiated in the mysteries of the
Grand Orient, and would lead the age to
perfection.
The fraternity kindly supplied an account of its
history. The head and front of the movement was
one C.R.C. of Teutonic race, a magical
hierophant of the highest rank, who in the fifth
year of his age had been placed in a convent,
where he learned the Humanities. At the age of
fifteen, he accompanied one, Brother P. A. L. on
his travels to the Holy Land ; but the brother
died at Cyprus to the great grief of C.R.C.,
who, however resolved to undertake the arduous
journey himself. Arriving at Damascus, he there
obtained knowledge of a secret circle of
theosophists who dwelt in an unknown city of
Arabia called Damcar, who were expert in all
magical arts. Turning aside from his quest of
the Holy Sepulchre, the lad made up his mind to
trace these illuminati and sought out certain
Arabians who carried him to the city of Damcar.
There he arrived at the age of sixteen years,
and was graciously welcomed by the magi, who
intimated to him that they had long been
expecting him, and relating to him several
passages in his past life. They proceeded to
initiate him into the mysteries of occult
science, and he speedily became acquainted with
Arabic, from which tongue he translated the
divine book M into Latin. After three years of
mystic instruction, he departed from the
mysterious city for Egypt, whence he sailed to
Fez as the wise men of Damcar had instructed him
to do. There he fell in with other masters who
taught him how to evoke the elemental spirits.
After a further two years' sojourn at Fez, his
period of initiation was over, and he proceeded
to Spain to confer with the wisdom of that
country, and convince its professors of the
errors of their ways. Unhappily, the scholarhood
of Spain turned its back upon him with loud
laughter, and intimated to him that it had
learned the principles and practice of the black
art from a much higher authority, namely Satan
himself, who had unveiled to them the secrets of
necromancy within the walls of the university of
Salamanca. With noble indignation he shook the
dust of Spain from his feet, and turned his face
to other countries only, alas, to find the same
treatment within their boundaries. At last he
sought his native land of Germany where he pored
over the great truths he had learned in solitude
and seclusion, and reduced his universal
philosophy to writing. Five years of a hermit's
life, however, only served to strengthen him in
his opinions, and he could not but feel that one
who had achieved the transmutation of metals and
had manufactured the elixir of life was designed
for a nobler purpose than rumination in
solitude. Slowly and carefully he began to
collect around him assistants who became the
nucleus of the Rosicrcuian fraternity. When he
had gathered four of these persons into the
brotherhood they invented amongst them a magical
language, a cipher writing of equal magical
potency, and a large dictionary replete with
occult wisdom. They erected a House of the Holy
Ghost, healed the sick, and initiated further
members, and then betook themselves as
missionaries to the various countries of Europe
to disseminate their wisdom. In course of time
their founder, C.R.C., breathed his last, and
for a hundred and twenty years the secret of his
burial place was concealed. The original members
also died one by one, and it was not until the
third generation of adepts had arisen that the
tomb of their illustrious founder was unearthed
during the re-building of one of their secret
dwellings. The vault in which this tomb was
found was illuminated by the sun of the magi,
and inscribed with magical characters. The body
of the illustrious founder was discovered in
perfect preservation, and a number of marvels
were discovered buried beside him, which
convinced the existing members of the fraternity
that it was their duty to make these publicly
known to the world. It was this discovery which
immediately inspired the brotherhood to make its
existence public in the circular above alluded
to, and they invited all worthy persons to apply
to them for initiation. They refused, however,
to supply their names and addresses, and desired
that those who wished for initiation could
signify their intention by the publication of
printed letters which they would be certain to
notice. In conclusion they assured the public of
the circumstance that they were believers in the
reformed Church of Christ, and denounced in the
most solemn manner all pseudo-occultists and
alchemists.
This Fama created tremendous excitement among
the occultists of Europe, and a large number of
pamphlets were published criticising and
defending the society and its manifesto, in
which it was pointed out there were a number of
discrepancies. To begin with no such city as
Damcar existed within the bounds of Arabia.
Where, it was asked, is the House of the Holy
Ghost, which the Rosierueians stated had been
seen by 100,000 persons and was yet con-:;aled
from the world ? C.R.C., the founder, as a boy
of ifteen must have achieved great occult skill
to have astonished the magi of Damcar. But
despite these objec-
-ons considerable credit was given to the
Rosicrucian :jbiication. After a lapse of a year
appeared the Con-::;ion of the Rosicrucian
Fraternity, addressed to the
-Arned in. Europe. This offered initiation by
gradual r-iges to selected applicants, and
discovered its ultra-Protestant character by
what an old Scots divine was wont
to call a " dig at the Pope," whom it publicly
execrated, expressing the pious hope that his "
asinine braying" would finally be put a stop to
by tearing him to pieces with nails ! In the
foliowing year, 1616, The Chymical Nuptials of
Christian Rosencreutz was published, purporting
to be incidents in the life of the mysterious
founder of the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross.
But the chymical marriage makes Christian
Rosencreutz an old man when he achieved
initiation, and this hardly squares with the
original account of his life as given in the
Fama. By this time a number of persons had
applied for initiation, but had received no
answer to their application. As many of these
believed themselves to be alchemical and magical
adepts, great irritation arose among the
brotherhood, and it was generally considered
that the whole business was a hoax. By 1620, the
Rosierueians and their publication had lapsed
into absolute obscurity.
Numerous theories have been put forward as to
the probable authorship of these manifestoes,
and it has been generally considered that the
theologian Andreae produced them as a kind of
laborious jest; but this view is open to so many
objections that it may be dismissed summarily.
Their authorship has also been claimed for
Taulerus, Joachim Jiinge, and JEgidius Guttmann;
but the individual in whose imagination
originated the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross
will probably for ever remain unkn own. It is
however, unlikely that the manifesto was of the
nature of a hoax, because it bears upon its
surface the marks of intense earnestness, and
the desire for philosophical and spiritual
reformation; and it is not unlikely that it
sprang from some mystic of the Lutheran school
who desired the cooperation of like-minded
persons. Mr. Waite thinks there is fair
presumptive evidence to show that some corporate
body such as the Rosicrucian Brotherhood did
exist: but as he states that the documents which
are the basis of this belief give evidence also
that the association did not originate as it
pretended, and was devoid of the powers which it
claimed, this hypothesis seems in the highest
degree unlikely. Such a document would more
probably emanate from one individual, and it is
almost impossible to conceive that a body of men
professing such aims and objects as the
manifesto lays claim to could possibly have lent
themselves to such a farrago of absurdity as the
history of C.R.C. A great many writers have
credited the brotherhood with immense antiquity
; but as the publisher of the manifesto places
its origin so late as the fifteenth century,
there is little necessity to take these theories
into consideration.
So far as can be gleaned from their
publications, the Rosierueians, or the person in
whose imagination they existed, were believers
in the doctrines of Paracelsus. They believed in
alchemy, astrology and occult forces in nature
and their credence in these is identical with
the doctrines of .the great master of modern
magic. They were thus essentially modern in
their theosophical beliefs, just as they were
modern in their religious ideas. Mr. Waite
thinks it possible that in .Nuremburg in the
year 1598 a Rosicrucian Society was founded by a
mystic and alchemist named Simon Studion, under
the title of Militia Crucifera Evangelica, which
held periodical meetings in that city. Its
proceedings are reported in an uuprinted work of
Studion's, and in opinions and objects it was
identical with the supposed Rosicrucian Society.
'• Evidently," he says, •' toe Rosicrucian
Society of 1614 was a transfiguration or
development of the sect established by Simon
Studion." But there is no good evidence for this
statement. After a lapse of nearly a century,
the Rosierueians reappeared in Germany. In 1710,
u certain Sincerus Racatus or Sigmund Richter,
published A Perfect and True Preparation of the
Philosophical Stone according to the Secret
Methods of the Brotherhood of the Golden and
Rosy Cross, and annexed to this treatise were
the rules of the Rosicrucian Society for the
initiation of new members. Mr. Waite is of
opinion that these rules are equivalent to a
proof of the society's existence at the period,
and that they help to establish the important
fact that it still held its meetings at
Nuremburg, where it was originally established
by Studion. In 1785, the publication of The
Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians of tlie
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries took place
at Altona, showing in Mr. Waite's opinion that
the mysterious brotherhood still existed ; but
this was their last manifesto. These things are
certainly of the nature of proof, but they are
so scanty that any reasonable and workable
hypothesis that such a society ever existed can
scarcely be founded upon them. For all we know
to the contrary they may be publications of
enthusiastic and slightly unbalanced
pseudo-mystics, and nothing definite Can be
gleaned from their existence.
In 1618 Henrichus Neuhuseus published a Latin
pamphlet, which stated that the Rosicrucian
adepts had migrated to India, and present-day
Theosophists will have it that they exist now in
the table-lands of Tibet. It is this sort of
thing which altogether discredits occultism in
the eyes of the public. Without the slightest
shadow of proof of any kind, such statements are
wildly disseminated ; and it has even been
alleged that the Rosicrucians have developed
into a Tibetan Brotherhood, and have exchanged
Protestant Christianity for esoteric Buddhism!
Mr. Waite humorously states that he has not been
able to trace the eastern progress of the
Brotherhood further than the Isle of Mauritius,
where it is related in a curious manuscript a
certain Comte De Chazal initiated a Dr.
Sigismund Bacstrom into the mysteries of the
Rose Cross Order in 1794 ; but we know nothing
about the Comte de Chazal or his character, and
it is just possible that Dr. Bacstrom might have
been one of those deluded persons who in all
times and countries have been willing to
purchase problematical honours. From the Fama
and Confessio, we glean some definite ideas of
the occult conceptions of the Rosicrucians. In
these documents we find the doctrine of the
Microcosmus (q.v.), which considers man as
containing the potentialities of the whole
universe. This is a distinctly Paracelsian
belief. We also find the belief of the doctrine
of Elemental Spirits (q.v.), which many people
wrongly think originated with the Rosicrucians;
but which was probably reintroduced by
Paracelsus. We also find that the manifestoes
contain the doctrine of the Signatura Rerum,
which also is of Paracelsian origin. This is the
magical writing referred to in the Fama; and the
mystic characters of that book of nature, which,
according to the Confessio, stand open for all
eyes, but can be read or understood by only the
very few. These characters are the seal' of God
imprinted on the wonderful work of creation, on
the heavens and earth, and on all beasts. It
would appear too, that some form of practical
magic was known to the Brotherhood. They were
also, according to themselves, alchemists, for
they had achieved the transmutation of metals
and the manufacture of the elixir of life.
In England the Rosicrucian idea was taken up by
Fludd, who wrote a spirited defence of the
Brotherhood; by Vaughan who translated the Fama
and the Confessio; and by John Heydon, who
furnished a peculiarly quaint and interesting
account of the Rosicrucians in The Wise Man's
Crown ; and further treatises regarding their
alchemical skill and medical ability in El
Havarevna, or The English Physitian's Tutor, and
A New Method of Rosie Crucian Physick, London
1658. In France Rosicrucianism ran a like
course. It has been stated by Buhle and others
that there was much connection between the
Rosicrucians and Freemasons.
A pseudo-Rosicrucian Society existed in England
before the year 1836, and this was remodelled
about the middle of last century under the title
" The Rosicrucian Society of England." To join
this it is necessary to be a Mason. The officers
of the society consist of three magi, a
master-general for the first and second orders,
a deputy master-general, a treasurer, a
secretary and seven ancients. The assisting
officers number a precentor, organist,
torch-bearer, herald, and so forth. The society
is composed of nine grades or classes. It
published a little quarterly magazine. from 1868
to 1879, which in an early number stated that
the society was " calculated to meet the
requirements of those worthy masons who wished
to study the science and antiquities of the
craft, and trace it through its successive
developments to the present time; also to cull
information from all the records extant from
those mysterious societies which had their
existence in the dark ages of the world, when
might meant right." These objects were, however,
fulfilled in a very perfunctory manner, if the
magazine of the association is any- criterion of
its work. For this publication is filled with
occult serial stories, reports of masonic
meetings and verse. Mr. Waite states that the
most notable circumstance connected with this
society is the complete ignorance which seems to
have prevailed among its members generally
concerning everything connected with
Rosicrucianism. The prime movers of the
association were Robert Went-worth Little,
Frederick Hockley, Kenneth Mackenzie and
Hargrave Jennings, and in the year 1872 they
seem to have become conscious that their society
had not borne out its original intention. By
this time the Yorkshire College and East of
Scotland College at Edinburgh, had been
founded—one does not know with what results. "
This harmless association," says Mr. Waite, "
deserves a mild sympathy at the hands of the
student of occultism. Its character," he
continues, " could hardly have deceived the most
credulous of its postulants. Some of its members
wrapped themselves in darkness and mystery,
proclaimed themselves Rosicrucians with intent
to deceive. These persons found a few—very
few—believers and admirers. Others assert that
the society is a cloak to something else— the
last resource of cornered credulity and exposed
impos-. ture. There are similar associations in
other parts of Europe, and also in America :
e.g., the Societas Rosicruciana of Boston." But
in the concluding pages of Mr. Waite's book we
find the following passage: " On the faith of a
follower of Honnes, I can promise that nothing
shall be held back from these true Sons of the
Doctrine, the sincere seekers after light, who
are empowered to preach the supreme Arcana of
the psychic world with a clean heart and an
earnest aim. True Rosicrucians and true
alchemicr.! adepts, if there be any in existence
at this day, will not resent a new procedure
when circumstances have been radically changed."
Mr. Waite appeals to these students of occultism
wlio are men of method as well of imagination to
assist him in clearing away the dust and rubbish
which have accumulated during centuries of
oblivion in the silent sanctuaries of the
transcendental sciences, that the traditional
secrets of nature may shine forth in the
darkness of doubt and uncertainty to illuminate
the straight ami narrow avenues which
communicate between the seen and the unseen.
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