# "What is Rosicrucianism All About" Flawed
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
**Created:** [May 22, 2009, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256 "2009-05-22T00:45:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2009, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/21 "2009-05-25T21:43:01Z")
> [@mswas](#):
>
> those who know don’t say, and those who say, don’t know.
You don’t say!
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### Author:  [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2009, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/22 "2009-05-26T04:46:19Z")
> [@Eutychus](#):
>
> You don’t say!
I don’t!
I know a funny bit of trivia regarding the founder of AMORC, but I’m not going to tell it. 😉
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### Author:  [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2009, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/23 "2009-05-26T04:59:58Z")
> [@Eutychus](#):
>
> Well, no, it’s not murky because of all of that. It’s murky because of what I stated in the first sentence of my article.
>
> I don’t have a whole lot of time for a lengthy back and forth on this, so I’ll just make a few points.
>
> 1 : When I said “mind control” I wasn’t talking about controlling other people’s minds, but your own. That why AMORC’s philosophy is called “The Mastery of Life.” They feel that is you can master your own mind enough, you’re able to control yourself and your surroundings and circumstances better. However, one of their early exercises has you trying to make someone turn around by staring at the back of their head; a talent that Charles Xavier should have been looking into seeing how useful it might be.
Not terribly difficult to do actually. Hardly some super secret occult technique, but most people don’t think of making it a ‘skill’. And well, ‘mind control’, in the sense you are using it is at the root of so many different occult/spiritual practices as to be a pretty common thing. One must learn, ‘stillness’, IE the ability to get the forebrain to shut the hell up, before they can truly be said to be a thinker. That is what Buddhist meditation is about, it’s integral to Yoga, or Qi Gong, or Kung Fu or any Martial Art for that matter. I took some Qi Gong classes and he used some very good techniques for moving one’s consciousness back and forth in one’s mind to change the way one used one’s brain, and well I saw the effectiveness in the technique. It basically got one out of the forebrain thinking into that calm state where we all get when we act naturally and don’t ‘think’ about what we are doing we just act, and people’s postures changed completely. I saw it demonstrated in a martial arts capacity where people were thrown back with the slightest of movements. It wasn’t magic, it was because one who can harmonize their brain so that the entire body is in concert can manifest the power of all the muscle groups in the body in sync into a single focal point.
> [@](#):
>
> 2 : Just because a group puts on the label of “occult” does not dismiss them from the same historical standards that we would apply to any other association, such as The Boy Scouts, The Salvation Army, the Republican Party or the Elks. The problem with most of these groups is that they usually claim directives from some “secret chiefs” or some such mysterious benefactor who comes to them in the dead of night wearing shadowy clothes drinking vile, foamy liquids from a Hello Kitty coffee mug, and installs them with legitimacy which the unwashed must therefore accept. I say twaddle. I can categorically state that there is no historical link and just barely any philosphical link between the original Rosicrucians, if they ever did exist, and any modern day group.
I don’t think that groups that get labelled ‘occult’ generally refer to themselves as ‘occult’. Occult just means hidden. Occultists are people who delve into hidden mysteries. It’s pretty mundane when you think about it really. You can categorically state it but as you can’t prove a damn bit of it, it doesn’t matter what you can categorically state does it? You’d have to claim a greater understanding of the philosophical link than those others to be able to categorically state something like that wouldn’t you? I for one have never met a single person that thinks Christian Rosencreutz is or ever was a real person.
> [@](#):
>
> 3 : Spiritual ancestry doesn’t equate to historical ancestry. Just because I am a patriot doesn’t make me a member of the pre-Revolutionary War Sons of Liberty than it makes me Joe Lewis. My artcile was about what the Rosicrucians believed. That’s what I wrote. Modern “Rosicrucians” are such _in name only_. Spiritual ancestry as a philosophical standard in this case barely holds water. As a historical standard, it sucks.
I was referring to a lineage of ritual endowment. Like how Freemasons talk about their ancient rituals, which are such as they are unbroken back to 1717. Any claim beyond that is speculation that most Freemasons don’t really buy into. Right, so YOU know what the REAL Rosicrucians believed, and the Rosicrucian orders of today are just posers right? Is that what you are categorically stating? So what makes you so sure that you can discern what is authentic and what is not as opposed to all those posers and fools in the SRIA and AMORC?
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### Author:  [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2009, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/24 "2009-05-26T09:27:53Z")
> [@mswas](#):
>
> I was referring to a lineage of ritual endowment. Like how Freemasons talk about their ancient rituals, which are such as they are unbroken back to 1717. Any claim beyond that is speculation that most Freemasons don’t really buy into. Right, so YOU know what the REAL Rosicrucians believed, and the Rosicrucian orders of today are just posers right? Is that what you are categorically stating? So what makes you so sure that you can discern what is authentic and what is not as opposed to all those posers and fools in the SRIA and AMORC?
The difference is that we have a historical record of Free Masonry from 1717 to the present. We have no such record for Rosicrucianism. And claimants to that heritage have never been able to provide any. If their claims are legitimate, they should be able to adhere to a historical standard; otherwise it’s all just speculation.
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### Author:  [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2009, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/25 "2009-05-26T13:29:37Z")
But their history is occult, which means hidden, so you’re not privy to the history. But it’s there, really it is, you have to believe me.
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### Author:  [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2009, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/26 "2009-05-26T15:14:17Z")
> [@Eutychus](#):
>
> The difference is that we have a historical record of Free Masonry from 1717 to the present. We have no such record for Rosicrucianism. And claimants to that heritage have never been able to provide any. If their claims are legitimate, they should be able to adhere to a historical standard; otherwise it’s all just speculation.
Well I don’t believe that any institution has an obligation to prove anything about itself to the outside world. But I would say that I agree that it goes without saying that there is no unbroken lineage between them and the original Rosicrucians, partly because we have no idea who the original Rosicrucians even were. But your claims that there isn’t even a philosophical link are a bit specious because these people are reading the same texts that you did, and those texts are well known and popularized BECAUSE of SRIA and AMORC. In otherwords you never would have found them if these organizations weren’t prominent enough. That’s why I find your claims to be a little bit too far reaching.
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### Author:  [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2009, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/27 "2009-05-26T15:50:08Z")
> [@mswas](#):
>
> Well I don’t believe that any institution has an obligation to prove anything about itself to the outside world.
And here I would disagree with you. If you’re going to want me to join a group which supposedly is tied to a 17th century secret organization, you’d better come up with some documentation, or else you’re no better than the guy down at the looney bin who says he’s the rightful heir to Napoleon’s empire.
[qoute] But your claims that there isn’t even a philosophical link are a bit specious because these people are reading the same texts that you did, and those texts are well known and popularized BECAUSE of SRIA and AMORC. In otherwords you never would have found them if these organizations weren’t prominent enough. That’s why I find your claims to be a little bit too far reaching.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t think you’re actually saying that we wouldn’t know about these documents had it not been for the SRIA and AMORC. These early works were well known among historians before the SRIA and AMORC were even gleams in their respective creators eyes. In fact, one of my sources says that the early _Transactions_ of the SRIA contained “a complete lack of curiosity about 17th century Rosicrucianism.” It was only when MacGregor Mathers introduced the legend into Golden Dawn ritual, filling in holes in the story with his own imagination, that the original documents became a part of the order at all.
These documents did not exist in a vaccum waiting to be “discovered” by later “Rosicrucians.” They were well-known by historians of the time and beyond, and not popularized by various occult groups.
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### Author:  [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2009, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/28 "2009-05-26T16:09:25Z")
> [@Eutychus](#):
>
> And here I would disagree with you. If you’re going to want me to join a group which supposedly is tied to a 17th century secret organization, you’d better come up with some documentation, or else you’re no better than the guy down at the looney bin who says he’s the rightful heir to Napoleon’s empire.
Or you just don’t join. Rather simple.
> [@](#):
>
> I don’t think you’re actually saying that we wouldn’t know about these documents had it not been for the SRIA and AMORC. These early works were well known among historians before the SRIA and AMORC were even gleams in their respective creators eyes. In fact, one of my sources says that the early _Transactions_ of the SRIA contained “a complete lack of curiosity about 17th century Rosicrucianism.” It was only when MacGregor Mathers introduced the legend into Golden Dawn ritual, filling in holes in the story with his own imagination, that the original documents became a part of the order at all.
I see. And where does this source get his info on the Transactions?
> [@](#):
>
> These documents did not exist in a vaccum waiting to be “discovered” by later “Rosicrucians.” They were well-known by historians of the time and beyond, and not popularized by various occult groups.
I am not saying they did, but there are lots of historical documents that languish in obscurity. If it were not for some more popularized organizations the likelihood that the documents would see the light of day outside of some very obscure historical circles is very low.
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### Author:  [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/29 "2009-05-26T16:54:51Z")
> [@mswas](#):
>
> Or you just don’t join. Rather simple.
That’s exactly my point. You see, here at the SD, we don’t just take things on faith. If you’re going to claim membership of people like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Francis Bacon et. al. despite the lack of any historical evidence, then you’s better be able to back up your claims. Otherwise you just become another version of The DaVinci Code. And if you do it knowingly, it cast doubts on any of the rest of your claims as well.
> [@](#):
>
> I see. And where does this source get his info on the Transactions?
Wha- huh?? You see to be saying that these modern groups don’t need any historical validation to be considered legitimate heirs to the original group (if there ever really was any which is doubtful) and now you want a _cite??_
Let’s just say that he got them from the secret masters of his order and leave it at that. That seems to be a leigitmate point of view around here.
> [@](#):
>
> I am not saying they did, but there are lots of historical documents that languish in obscurity. If it were not for some more popularized organizations the likelihood that the documents would see the light of day outside of some very obscure historical circles is very low.
And here we will have to agree to disagree. The documents were definitely not obscure or only known by some obscure historical circles. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the SRIA and AMORC distorted their real meanings and their influence on Eurpoean history. But that’s another thesis that I haven’t entirely worked out yet.
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### Author:  [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2009, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/30 "2009-05-26T17:38:01Z")
**Eutychus** , what’s the evidence that Fludd was ‘another Lutheran minister’? And isn’t ‘Andrade’ a rather unconventional spelling?
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### Author:  [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/31 "2009-05-26T18:29:37Z")
> [@APB](#):
>
> **Eutychus** , what’s the evidence that Fludd was ‘another Lutheran minister’? And isn’t ‘Andrade’ a rather unconventional spelling?
I’ve always seen it spelled Andreae or Andrae.
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### Author:  [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2009, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/32 "2009-05-26T18:33:33Z")
> [@Eutychus](#):
>
> That’s exactly my point. You see, here at the SD, we don’t just take things on faith. If you’re going to claim membership of people like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Francis Bacon et. al. despite the lack of any historical evidence, then you’s better be able to back up your claims. Otherwise you just become another version of The DaVinci Code. And if you do it knowingly, it cast doubts on any of the rest of your claims as well.
Assuming something isn’t true just because you can’t verify it is just as stupid and ignorant as believing everything you’re told. No amount of pretentious appealing to the authority of the SDMB will change that. I’d like to remind you the DaVinci code is drawing from these things as sources and not the other way around.
> [@](#):
>
> Wha- huh?? You see to be saying that these modern groups don’t need any historical validation to be considered legitimate heirs to the original group (if there ever really was any which is doubtful) and now you want a _cite??_
:rolleyes: You are the one arguing a positon. They are not here to make an argument. So yes, the burden of proof is on you. I’m surprised that this is even controversial. But since it is, what do you have to hide? Why does the request for a cite bother you? Since you have the intellectual high ground these simple requests should be easy for you no?
> [@](#):
>
> Let’s just say that he got them from the secret masters of his order and leave it at that. That seems to be a leigitmate point of view around here.
LOL, can’t back your shit up so you have to result to personal attacks huh? You’re the one who keeps bringing up ascended masters.
> [@](#):
>
> And here we will have to agree to disagree. The documents were definitely not obscure or only known by some obscure historical circles. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the SRIA and AMORC distorted their real meanings and their influence on Eurpoean history. But that’s another thesis that I haven’t entirely worked out yet.
Well when you do, get back to me I am interested in reading about it.
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### Author:  [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2009, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/33 "2009-05-26T18:44:08Z")
The source was Volume 18 of “Man, Myth and Magic” edited by Richard Cavendish. It doesn’t list a specific source, but does give an _extensive_ bibliography of sources.
I’m not assuming something is not true. I can’t prove a negative. It may well be true, but it’s up to the apologists to prove it IS true. So far, I haven’t seen any proof and without evidence I don’t automatically believe it’s true on “faith.” I’m also not going to state that it’s true just because they claim it is.
I’m not the one bringing up “ascended masters.” The Golden Dawn, AMORC, virtually any modern “Rosicrucian” group does. That’s what makes it a legitimate object of investigation; investigation of which shows that their claims just don’t hold water.
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### Author:  [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2009, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/34 "2009-05-26T19:29:04Z")
> [@Eutychus](#):
>
> The source was Volume 18 of “Man, Myth and Magic” edited by Richard Cavendish. It doesn’t list a specific source, but does give an _extensive_ bibliography of sources.
Thanks.
> [@](#):
>
> I’m not assuming something is not true. I can’t prove a negative. It may well be true, but it’s up to the apologists to prove it IS true. So far, I haven’t seen any proof and without evidence I don’t automatically believe it’s true on “faith.” I’m also not going to state that it’s true just because they claim it is.
Well there is this idea that seems to be prevalent that people have a responsibility to prove something to you. They don’t necessarily, but if they are trying to convince YOU then they certainly do have an obligation.
> [@](#):
>
> I’m not the one bringing up “ascended masters.” The Golden Dawn, AMORC, virtually any modern “Rosicrucian” group does. That’s what makes it a legitimate object of investigation; investigation of which shows that their claims just don’t hold water.
Well ascended masters are about as easy to prove as God, so if an ascended master appears to me I’ll believe it, if not I won’t. But I don’t really have a ball in the court otherwise.
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### Author:  [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2009, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/35 "2009-05-26T19:43:58Z")
And I think that brings us full circle as far as my report goes. My only real point was … these groups can claim whatever they like and God bless them. They don’t have to justify themselves to me. But as far as writing what is supposed to be a factual report, I have to go with verifiable, substantiated facts, not claims on which our only resort to proof is faith.
**APB** … I may have to retract the part about Fludd being a Lutheran minister when I get back from my honemoon. I know I had read that somewhere along the line, but can’t find a specific reference right now. Remember, I wroe this piece almost 4 years ago so some of the references escape me right now.
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### Author:  [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2009, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/36 "2009-05-26T20:13:30Z")
Enjoy your honeymoon. 😉
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### Author:  [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/37 "2009-05-26T21:14:49Z")
> [@mswas](#):
>
> Enjoy your honeymoon. 😉
Don’t put words in the brother’s mouth. He’s going on his **honemoon**. It’s a rite of manhood handed down from the ascended Bodhisattvas wherein the adherent burns off his former self in the sacred lunar flame and emerges as a pure paradigm of well-honed Cecildom. From thence he shall come to judge all true knowledge, citing the greatest scripture of transconscious knowledge: _The World_.
Enjoy your honemoon mate. Perhaps one day I shall be worthy.
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### Author:  [@scaro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scaro)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2009, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/38 "2009-05-27T12:50:25Z")
> [@Eutychus](#):
>
> 3 : Spiritual ancestry doesn’t equate to historical ancestry. Just because I am a patriot doesn’t make me a member of the pre-Revolutionary War Sons of Liberty than it makes me Joe Lewis. My artcile was about what the Rosicrucians believed. That’s what I wrote. Modern “Rosicrucians” are such _in name only_. Spiritual ancestry as a philosophical standard in this case barely holds water. As a historical standard, it sucks.
Well, perhaps not, but these are two different ends of a spectrum.
It seems fairly clear that even if there was no ‘chain of initiation of grand masters’ - an AMORC conceit that was picked up by the creators of the Priory of Sion hoax from AMORC pamphlets, by the way - there was still communication down through the years from interested individuals who passed aspects of the tradition on to each other.
Many of these folk, St Martin for example, claimed nothing at all, they didn’t head any organisation, bore no illustrious title, and only gave a simple initiation, ie a laying on of hands. But the ideas remain clearly identifiable over the years.
By its very nature, such a ‘passing down’ is not going to leave much in the way of historical proof.
The modern AMORC organisation and the Beverly Hall R+C organisation of RS Clymer engaged in a very public spat over who had the right to use the name ‘Rosicrucian’ in the US. Others had quarrelled over this before, but from this feud in particular emerged the idea of an apostolic succession as something up for contention, with one org permitted per country. Albeit both Lewis and Clymer had laughable claims to any such thing.
AMORC, who for whatever reason emerged as the loudest and most public claimant, particularly taught little that I would call Rosicrucian, based on examining their teachings and contrasting with 18th century Rosicrucian documents and the manifestoes themselves.
There isn’t much, in fact, there may well be nothing, that you can point to in AMORC teachings and say ‘this here is clearly descended from line X of the Fama.’
In fact, AMORC didn’t even publish the manifestoes themselves until about fifteen years after HS Lewis started the group. Make of that what you will.
The way AMORC is understood by those in occult movements is as an ‘outer order’ that provides the basics of initiation.
It raises the Rosicrucian banner in public, so that at least the name is out there for those who want to look, or join. When pressed ,the org will say that they aren’t ‘the Rosicrucians’ as such, they are only ‘students of Rosicrucianism’. Albeit they have benefited from clouding that distinction in the name of self-promotion!
However, can you find people who you’d call ‘Rosicrucian’ (ie, whose activities and ethos conforms to what history understands by the term) within AMORC?
Very definitely. In the 1930s the order was responsible for attracting European alchemists and did groundbreaking work in mineral alchemy such that they had labs and furnaces working round the clock in California, and the Duponts and the like interested. This continued until the 1960s, not always with much enthusiasm from Head Office.
Similar work on Kabbalah and alchemy was done within AMORC’s inner Martinist order, the TMO (Traditional Martinist Order) in the 1970s and 80s too.
And that \*\*\*is \*\*\*history.
Ben
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### Author:  [@scaro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scaro)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2009, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/39 "2009-05-27T12:55:16Z")
> [@Eutychus](#):
>
> I’m not the one bringing up “ascended masters.” The Golden Dawn, AMORC, virtually any modern “Rosicrucian” group does. That’s what makes it a legitimate object of investigation; investigation of which shows that their claims just don’t hold water.
Not all do, by any means. The SRIA (by which I mean the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, not the later Societas Rosicruciana in America) has no such teaching that I know. And it is easily one of the oldest groups, and makes only modest claims.
How would investigating ascended masters show that the claims didn’t hold water? They’d be kind of incorporeal by definition, wouldn’t they ?
Ben
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2009, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-rosicrucianism-all-about-flawed/497256/40 "2009-05-27T13:33:22Z")
> [@scaro](#):
>
> Very definitely. In the 1930s the order was responsible for attracting European alchemists and did groundbreaking work in mineral alchemy such that they had labs and furnaces working round the clock in California, and the Duponts and the like interested. This continued until the 1960s, not always with much enthusiasm from Head Office.
>
> Similar work on Kabbalah and alchemy was done within AMORC’s inner Martinist order, the TMO (Traditional Martinist Order) in the 1970s and 80s too.
>
> And that \*\*\*is \*\*\*history.
I would very much like to see cites about this “groundbreaking work in mineral alchemy”. Would you mind starting a new thread in the proper forum?
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