I think there’s a general understanding in modern movements that the original Rosicrucians were either incorporeal or more likely, that they were mundane hoaxers who set something in train, at the instigation of (insert whacky theory here).
Nonetheless, by the 18th century, an incredible amount of literature and several societies had gathered about those foundation documents and the ethos in them. Whatever the nature of its origin, by the 18th century there was this definable Rosicrucian ‘thing’ going on.
Oddly, there is quite a gap between the earliest date of the manifestoes’ appearance in draft (1604 - 1610) and the formation of verifiable orgs with signed lists of members, robes, baubles and other Masonic fripperies, c,1710.
There’s something just slightly unsatisfactory about the 1610 events, particularly the fact that JV Andreae himself poured scorn on the manifestoes in later life.
This has led many to speculate that there were earlier antecdents- the most popular one - because it contains a symbol that could be called a ‘rose cross’ and a similar mythos, is Simon Studion’s Naometria of 1596, which reports on a convention or event, itself unproven, of 1586 which formed something called the ‘Militia Crucifera Evangelica’ - not necessarily to be understood as being a particular group that one might join.
So in the occult we don’t *necessarily *set great store by simple historical connection to those original Rosicrucians of 1610, although this may sound odd to the straightforward historian.
But . . . and here’s the rub, because the original Rosicrucians aren’t around to take the blame, an SRIA which merely set itself up as ‘a Rosicrucian study group’ or an AMORC which maintains that it has ‘students of Rosicrucianism’ can, for the sake of brevity, or in the interest of fulminating bombastic claims, step up to the plate and say ‘we are the Rosicrucians’, as can any one of a number of groups.
It is true that the links of SRIA and AMORC to the historical documents is tenuous. One might even say non-existent. It may not be too cynical to suggest that most R+C orgs were founded by people who wanted to be able to walk around calling themselves Rosicrucians, as a kind of exclusive badge.
Whether either organisation was linked to individuals who did set great store by the documents, and whether these outer groups later came to attract individuals who *did *take the ethos to heart in a more authentic way, well, that’s another matter.
Though the early SRIA didn’t have much knowledge of Rosicrucianism, this is not surprising. The Edinburgh ancestor of the SRIA seemingly tottered out of history and promptly expired, having passed on its initiation and the basis of a ritual to Hughan and Little, two Masons from London.
It’s no secret that it passed on little else . . . but this modest happenstance does seem somewhat more likely than the grander claims made by the likes of PB Randolph or HS Lewis about initiation into some vast fraternity in Europe.
In Lewis’ case it is clear that he had some brush with some occultists in France who *he *claimed as Rosicrucian, and he reported a ‘rare initiation’ while in their presence, ie a visionary experience. Now, as unprovable as it is, in a tradition espousing all sorts of mystical events and with invisible masters, is such a thing implausible? Well, from the inside, not in the least.
Yeah, certainly. Sorry if I don’t know which forum this stuff should be on, but AMORC’s work, particularly on reviving alchemy in the 20th century, is common knowledge.
Now, now… The DaVinci Code is just a bad novel. You mean Holy Blood, Holy Grail, the book of thoroughly fictional non-fiction that Dan Brown either[ul]
[li]was deceived by, or[/li][li]plagiarized.[/li][/ul]
I did post some stuff correcting/commenting on certain aspects of the ‘Rosicrucian’ entry back in 2007, but it seems to have been missed, presumably in a stampede of ‘Rosicrucian’ related traffic on the forum
Anyway, it’s here, FWIW:
The main error is that point about SRIA being linked to the FUDOFSI. There’s no link there at all.
Here are my list of suggested corrections. All are based on the history, not group vs group oneupmanship or what I was told last night when the Gand Master of the Knights Templar appeared to me in a vision. (By the way, the GM of the KTs *did *appear to me in a dream, though, and she’s hot, 22, and likes getting her clothes off … but that’s for another day.)
Ah, so anyway, getting into it:
Researching the occult is always tricky since you tend to find at least three times as much (oh, let’s be dainty, shall we?) bull excrement as you might expect from one bull. Wiccans claim descent from old world matriarchal religions, while some Masonic writers claim direct descent from God. The history of Rosicrucianism is interesting but is often obscured by adherents who claim a much earlier origin than the record supports.
The documented history of Rosicrucianism reaches back no further than the early 1600s, and modern Rosicrucian organizations don’t date back anywhere near that far.
*The first organisations that we can say existed in any way that would be recognised by a history faculty – excluding ‘channelled research’ and other bits of excitement - were probably the Gold Und Rosenkreuz order which was claimed to exist in 1710 but probably got under way halfway through the 18th century. It did feature an initiation in a church involving cutting of the hair, bloodletting and presentation of the initiate with a portion of the philosopher’s stone. It seems to have been nothing to do with the heavily Masonic style of later Gold Und Rosenkreuz initiation at all, so the link between the org claimed to exist in 1710 and that of the 1750s is questionable. *
In 1614 a curious pamphlet entitled the Fama Fraternitatis was published in Cassel, Germany. This wasn’t the first appearance of the Fama; reportedly it circulated in manuscript as early as 1610. There is some evidence that the work and some associated pieces were published in order to promote the anti-Jesuit agenda of the publisher, Wilhelm Wessel, but that probably wasn’t the intent of the original work.
The Fama tells the story of one Christian Rosencreutz
No it doesn’t. It talks of our ‘Brother CRC’ or ‘Father CRC’ - the name Christian Rosenkreuz does not appear until the third manifesto. Are they the same person? Well, you’d assume it, but some have argued otherwise.
who, as a young man, wandered through the Near East learning the mystical wisdom of the Arabs and Egyptians and finding much enlightenment there. Upon returning to Germany he attempted to share this knowledge but was laughed at and shunned. He and a few like-minded people formed a society called the Fraternity of the Rose Cross, building a temple called the Spiritus Sanctus. There were only eight members at the beginning; all men, all bachelors and all virgins. The agreement among them was simple:
They should profess only to be healers and act in that capacity whenever requested for no payment
They would have no uniform or habit but would adopt the customs of the country where they lived
They would meet once a year at the Spiritus Sanctus, or send a note excusing their absence
Each person should find someone to be his successor
The letters “C.R” would be their seal and mark, and
No, RC.
The fraternity would remain secret for 100 years.
Presumably the Fama was published after the 100 years had elapsed as it goes on to report the discovery of the Spiritus Sanctus and describe the fraternity to the outside world. It doesn’t explicitly ask people to join, but says the group’s members will be watching for those in tune with their thinking. The last few lines are a bit ominous:
And although at this time we make no mention either of names or meetings, yet nevertheless everyone’s opinion shall assuredly come to our hands, in what language so ever it be; nor anybody shall fail, who so gives his name, but to speak with some of us, either by word of mouth, or else, if there be some let, in writing. And this we say for a truth, that whosoever shall earnestly, and from his heart, bear affection unto us, it shall be beneficial to him in goods, body, and soul; but he that is false-hearted, or only greedy of riches, the same first of all shall not be able in any manner of wise to hurt us, but bring himself to utter ruin and destruction.
This was followed in 1615 by another purported Rosicrucian publication, the Confessio Fraternitatis, in the same vein as the first but much more apocalyptic. It told not only of a society that had obtained the secrets of enlightenment, but of a forthcoming reformation of the age, returning it a state of grace:
We ought therefore here to observe well, and make it known unto everyone, that God hath certainly and most assuredly concluded to send and grant to the world before her end, which presently thereupon shall ensue, such a truth, light, life and glory, as the first man Adam had, which he lost in Paradise, after which his successors were put and driven, with him, to misery wherefore there shall cease all servitude, falsehood, lies, and darkness, which by little and little, with the great world’s revolution, was crept into all arts, works, and governments of men, and have darkened the most part of them.
A third document appeared in 1616 entitled The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz. This is a highly symbolic treatise following Rosencreutz through a mystical “wedding” that is actually an alchemical allegory. Alchemy is presented not as the physical transformation of base metals into gold, but rather as a spiritual process in which the “base” person is enlightened, turning into spiritual “gold.” Most scholars believe the author of this tract to be Johann Valentine Andrade,
Andreae, not ‘Andrade’
a Lutheran minister from Wurttemburg. We know from Andrade’s autobiography that he wrote a piece called The Chemical Wedding around 1602-3,
*He claimed this - but he was only sixteen years old at the time, so there are doubts. *
but since the Wedding cites both the Fama and the Confessio, which didn’t appear until later, it’s thought the work was updated once the new Rosicrucian documents appeared. Even so Andrade considered it “a fiction, a jest, of little worth.”
The authors of the Fama and the Confessio never revealed themselves, and we have no independent evidence that a Fraternity of the Rose Cross ever existed. The simplest explanation is that the whole business was Andrade’s invention. Nevertheless the notion of a secret society with occult knowledge found a receptive audience. A few other authors, while denying membership in the society, were sympathetic to its ideals. For example, Robert Fludd, another Lutheran minister, published two books, the Compendious Apology for the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross (1616) and The Apologetic Tractatus for the Society of the Rosy Cross (1617), plus many other works with a Rosicrucian bent.
But that’s about as far as it went. Interest in the rosy cross flared briefly and then dwindled away. There have been attempts to show that the “Invisible College” of Rosicrucianism eventually became the Royal Society of London, but the evidence is tenuous at best. Likewise, attempts to show that Rosicrucianism survived as a society past the early 1600s lack any historical basis.
*There isn’t any evidence that a society existed in the 1600s at all, quite frankly, given the metaphorical nature of the Manifestoes I wouldn’t count them as evidence for anything you might encounter in the mundane world and which might meet down at the local Scouts Hall. See above for comments about the first thing that history would recognise as a Rosicrucian organisation. *
That hasn’t stopped some modern organizations from claiming membership in or leadership of the organization, though. Probably the best known group is the Ancient Mystical Order Rosea
usually spelt Rosae or Roseae
Crucis, otherwise known as AMORC, which operates a mail-order mystical school out of San Jose, California. It was founded by H. Spencer Lewis, an acquaintance if not an actual associate of the English occultist Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) and an ex-member of his Ordo Templi Orientalis.
*It was the Ordo Templis Orientis and HS Lewis wasn’t a member of Crowley’s OTO. He received a ‘Gage of Amity’ (ie recognition of friendship) from Theodore Reuss in 1920 but never attended any meetings nor so far as we know, acted in any way as a member of Crowley’s order. I believe Crowley may have furnished the documents that Lewis used to impress a meeting where a vote was taken to set up AMORC, and the letters ‘OTO’ are handwritten in a margin on the first announcement of the new group, the ‘Pronunziamento #1’ deposited in the NY Public Library. AMORC now say that document is a forgery - their version does not have the ‘OTO’ annotation, but this seems unlikely. So it looks like the early plans of Lewis were to associate with Crowley but he never pursued this and by 1916 was claiming French authority. *
The AMORC claims a history that stretches back to Pharaoh Thutmose III in 1477 BC and apparently includes anyone who used more than 3% of their brain, including Francis Bacon, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Pascal, Spinoza, and that great philosopher, Edith Piaf. (What, they couldn’t get Zasu Pitts?)
AMORC touts its authenticity by proclaiming it’s the only Rosicrucian organization that uses the word “order” in its name and claiming authorization from FUDOSI (the Fédération Universelle Des Ordres Et Sociétés Initiatiques), a sort of clearinghouse of mystical societies. To my mind that’s like Clarabelle the Clown being validated by Howdy Doody, but we’ll let that pass and trudge on.
Yes, it’s meaningless. What you might call more ‘authentic’ Rosicrucian bodies do not use the name in public at all. They claimed recognition from FUDOSI rather than authorisation but FUDOSI wrapped up in 1951 with a declaration by the European members that AMORC was ‘a pseudo initiatic order’ because of its commercial character and noisy publicity. That remains the view of most in the European orders today. But AMORC has been very successful, no doubt of it.
Many other organizations also call themselves Rosicrucian. In 1858, the Fraternitas Rosae Crucis was founded by Paschal Beverly Randolph after supposedly having been initiated into a German Rosicrucian fraternity.
*I think PB Randolph claimed initiation by the ‘Supreme Grand Dome of France or somesuch. I am not familiar with Randolph having a German claim. *
It’s still extant today and like AMORC provides mail-order spiritual illumination.
*PB Randolph’s organisation does not exist today. Its mantle passed to the Temple of the Rosy Cross of Boston and this body recognised the Societas Rosicruciana in America as its legitimate heir in or about 1918. The SRIAmerica still exists today.
A publisher called Reuben Swinburne Clymer who had been a student of the Boston group bought Randolph’s papers from his widow and set up the Fraternitas Rosae Crucis in Beverly Hall, Pennsylvania in 1920. Despite his claim to be Randolph’s successor, he was not. His organisation continues to exist and provides lesson material for a fairly modest fee*.
The Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia was founded by Robert Wentworth Little and popularized by William Wynn Wescott, both connected with the Golden Dawn ritual magic group.
*RW Little founded the SRIA with William James Hughan. Little was not connected to the Golden Dawn. He died in 1878, ten years before the Golden Dawn was formed. *
It requires its members to be both Masons and Christians.
*Trinitarian Christian. I’m not being picky, it can be a live issue. *
Surprisingly enough (or maybe not), it was authorized by FUDOFSI (Fédération Universelle des Ordres, Fraternités et Sociétés Initiatiques), FUDOSI’s rival.
*No it was not.
SRIA or the Soc Ros in Anglia, commonly known as the ‘Soc Ros’ was given its warrant in Scotland in 1866 by an earlier Societas Rosicruciana in Scotia of which expired shortly after authorising Hughan and Little to create the England society. There is a convergence of lineages around this time in Scotland from Anthony O’Neal Haye and William Henry White, though the official view is that it was O’Neal Haye who gave the warrant to Hughan and Little. There is much speculation about where this Scottish society originated from but for these purposes, the short answer is that we in the Society do not know. It had the same grades as the Gold Und Rosenkreuz, but that may not mean anything - those grades were public knowledge in the period when the Scottish society existed. The SRIA quickly chartered a second Societas Rosicruciana in Scotia which survives today.
These Masonic Rosicrucian groups have no initiatic link to a Societas Rosicruciana in America which came into being in 1909, despite the similar name.
The FUDOFSI was organised as a federation of occult orders in 1939 to counter the FUDOSI of AMORC and other European orders. FUDOFSI was an association of the ‘Orders of Lyon’ which were mainly Martinist and esoteric Masonic groups based in that part of France, the Fraternitas Rosicruciana Antiqua of Arnoldo Krum-Heller, based mainly in South America, and the Fraternitas Rosae Crucis of Beverly Hall, PA, led by one Reuben Swinburne Clymer who claimed (wrongly) to be Randolph’s heir. As a Federation it bore no initiatic authority of its own and could not authorise the founding of a distinct Rosicrucian group- though some orders within it may have been able to act in that capacity.
However organisations founded in 1939 do not authorise bodies founded 75 years earlier! – even in the shambles which passes for Rosicrucian history.*
Smaller but still recognizable is the Rosicrucian Fellowship founded by Max Heindel in 1907. A largely Christian organization, it has closer ties with theosophy and astrology than with any original Rosicrucian thought.
That’s a lot of popularity and advertising for a group which claimed at the end of the Confessio:
Even in such manner, although we might enrich the whole world, and endue them with learning, and might release it from innumerable miseries, yet shall we never be manifested and made known unto any man, without the especial pleasure of God; yea, it shall be so far from him whosoever thinks to get the benefit and be partaker of our riches and knowledge, without and against the will of God, that he shall sooner lose his life in seeking and searching for us, than to find us, and attain to come to the wished happiness of the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross."
Sources
For a more in-depth examination of the political and historical background of the original Rosicrucian texts, I highly recommend The Rosicrucian Enlightenment by Frances A. Yates, one of the few books that deals with the subject from a purely historical standpoint. Texts of the Fama, the Confessio and the Chemical Wedding can be found at: Rosicrucian Texts | Sacred Texts Archive
Link to AMORC’s history page, just so you can see that I wasn’t making up the Edith Piaf thing : Understanding reincarnation & esoteric teachings of Rosicrucians
— Euty
