The Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross - A History of the Rosicrucians

Arthur Edward Waite

• Publisher: White Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781528711463
• eBook ISBN: 9781528768849
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Mind & Body in Philosophy

"The Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross - A History of the Rosicrucians" is Arthur Edward Waite's study of the elusive Rosicrucians, a secret society which the first appeared to the public in Germany in the early 17th century. Arthur Edward Waite (1857 – 1942), more commonly referred to as A. E. Waite, was an American-born British mystic and poet. He wrote profusely on the subject of the occult and esoteric matters, and is famous for being the co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. His work arguably constitutes the first attempt to systematically studying the history of western occultism, which he viewed more of a spiritual tradition than proto-science or pseudo-religion, as was the more common conception. Contents include: "Mythical Rosicrucian Precursors", "Militia Crucifera Evangelica", "Alchemists And Mystics Symbolism", "Of The Rose And Cross", "Fama Fraternitatis R C", "Confessio Fraternitatis R C", "The Chemical Nuptials", "Authorship Of The Chemical Nuptials", "Development Of Rosicrucian Literature", etc. Other works by this author include: "The Alchemical Writings of Edward Kelly" (1893), "Turba Philsophorum" (1894), and "Devil-Worship in France" (1896). Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with the original text and artwork.

THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE ROSY CROSS

CHAPTER I

MYTHICAL ROSICRUCIAN PRECURSORS

THE Order of the Rosy Cross offers, on its external side, not only those general difficulties which are inherent to the subject of secret association but some others of a peculiar kind, chief among which are perhaps the successive transformations which it has suffered from within the groups and the actual circumstances of its origin, supposing that this is referable to the first quarter of the seventeenth century. It is much more difficult of approach than is, for example, the outward history of Emblematic Freemasonry. When the art and craft of building temples and houses began to be spiritualised is admittedly in a cloud of darkness, setting aside of course the casual symbolism which runs through all literature. We shall probably never know when men first took tools in their hands and began to moralise upon them, or when for such reason they might have called themselves speculative Masons—had a denomination of this kind come into their heads. But late or early—and not so late, I think—a time arrived when they issued out of their obscurity and held that epoch-making meeting which is connected for ever with the name of the London Apple-Tree Tavern. Thereon followed the institution of a Grand Lodge which became that of England—regarded now as the Mother Temple of the whole Masonic world. About the history henceforward there is no element of doubt on the broad scale, and so also we know the long story of spiritual and emblematic evolution which is that of the High Grades.

There is nothing corresponding to the year 1717 in the history of the Rosy Cross. Between 1614 and 1616 certain pamphlets appeared in German and Latin which affirmed that a secret and mysterious Order had subsisted in Germany for about two centuries; that it was full of light and knowledge, derived from a hidden centre in the Near-Eastern world; that it could and was prepared to transform and reform all the arts and sciences; and, in fine, that with this object in view, and for the personal benefit of earnest, prepared seekers, it was willing to admit members. The effect of this proclamation in Germany, Holland and even England is now a matter of notoriety: everybody who knows anything about Secret Societies in Europe has heard of the great debate that followed. But the first question for our consideration and the first difficulty before us is whether there was a Society at all in any incorporated sense when the documents which claimed to reveal it were first published as an appeal to alumni and literati of magian and occult arts. So far therefore from a visible and recorded convention held at an Apple-Tree Tavern, we are in the presence of a claim put out suddenly from the void: all that which lay behind it is the initial matter for our research, whether or not it may be possible to reach thereon any degree of certitude.

So also in respect of developments, that which in Masonry is moderately clear at least lies far behind the veil in respect of the Rosy Cross. The manifestoes of the early seventeenth century were either sent out by an incorporated society or led to imitative incorporation at an early stage of the story; and in either case there is sound reason for thinking that alchemy was the original concern-in-chief, however the theory of transmutation may have been understood and pursued within the particular circle. We know further that it was left for a period, at least in one of the branches, and there followed, as the fashion of a time, those astral workings which are heard of in the eighteenth century. We know, in fine, that there was a return to alchemy, and there are vague hints upon processes followed at that period. But what was included under the denomination of astral it is our task to learn if we can, and so also whether the Philosopher’s Stone in the light of the Rosy Cross was a Mystery of Spiritual Healing and Divine Tincture, an ethical art of contentment or a method of raising so-called base metals into the perfect form of gold.

It is certain, again, that the great medley of theosophical Israel under the name of Kabalism was one concern of the Order, but there is no evidence on the surface to tell us why it was pursued; now in the way of those Zoharic doctors who became—according to their legend—a sect of Christian illuminati; now in the expectation of performing prodigies by virtue of inherent power attributed to Divine Names; and now in the contra-theosophical sense of the dregs and lees of grimoires. We know in fine that at the beginning there was an Occult Order, that in some of the developments it remains at this day within those measures, but that at the apex or crown of its evolution it has emerged from all the vain observances, from all the seerings and the skryings, and has gone up into the mountain of the Lord—the fabled secret mountain of adeptship—in search of Divine attainment. But of these transformations and developments there are no records, except in so far as they may exist in the Secret Houses of the Brotherhood; and to approach therefore the story of the Rosy Cross on this side of its subject demands access to sources of knowledge which are open to few persons—if indeed to any outside the hidden circles. The archives of Mary’s Chapel, of Mother Kilwinning and other “time immemorial” Lodges of the Masonic Brotherhood are available to Masonic students, but—on the hypothesis that they were and are—the Temples of the Rosy Cross may have indeed their names and local habitations, but they are as inaccessible to ordinary research as if they were in the “nowhere and the naught.”

As I have intimated therefore, its external history is one of peculiar difficulty, and it requires to be approached from within as well as without in order to reflect any real light thereon. Its elusive nature and the charm of its mystery, not to speak of the tales of faërie which have been gathered about it by makers of myths for the past three hundred years, have drawn imaginations in literature, imaginations also in quest, who have woven about it another and iridescent veil. We have to find how far the Rosicrucian of romance has been made in the image and likeness of those Brethren of the Rosy Cross who pass—somewhat on the edges—across the horizon of history, and how far their quality of adeptship corresponds in the memorials concerning it with the radiant stuff of some of the modern dreams.

So far as obvious memorials are concerned, Rosicrucian history begins in and about the year 1614 with the publication of those documents which I have mentioned briefly, and by a highly speculative inference from these it has been supposed that the traditional founder died in 1484;¹ but the later legends of the Order have combined with independent makers of myths to stultify this speculation in favour of various conflicting dates and other founders, more or less remote in antiquity. As there will be sufficient opportunity to deal with them in later places, I will mention here one only of the more recent legends which may be said to have grown up within the Order, far down in the eighteenth century. It has obtained a casual vogue, owing to dissemination through Masonic channels in France. It postulates a founder of the Rosicrucians in a certain Ormesius or Ormuz and affirms that he was converted to Christianity at Alexandria by St. Mark, A.D. 46. He is said to have purified the Egyptian Mysteries and married them to the new faith. His disciples followed their master, and with these as a centre he established the Society of Ormuz, or of the Light. The sign of membership was a red cross worn on the person. Essenes and Therapeutæ entered the ranks of this sodality, in which Hermetic Secrets were preserved and transmitted. The Baron de Westerode has been credited with putting forward this fiction, he being an adventurer among secret societies derivative from Masonry about the period of the French Revolution. An obscure figure in the annals, I conceive him nevertheless to have been connected with one of those cliques which found shelter under the banner of Masonry, offering little distinction between Rosicrucian Rites proper and the numerous obediences of the Rose-Croix Grade in the old Rite of Perfection. These things merged into one another continually—or at least in the records concerning them. The alleged Society of Ormuz has been reflected into modern systems, like the confused and unwieldy Masonic Rite of Memphis. It is a characteristic specimen of spurious traditional history, to be met with everywhere in Masonry.¹

I have taken this particular illustration, not indeed that it is the best, or otherwise the nearest at hand, but as serving the purpose of a moment, to introduce the alternative fables which are not traditional histories, manufactured for Grade purposes—or to promote a particular claim—but views and opinions formulated in all seriousness as contributions to the Rosicrucian subject. I will cite them in that order to which they would belong in chronology, were there any chronology in reveries of this kind. We can pass over as simply fantastic some unsupported expressions of personal conviction like that of the French writer Sédir, who tells us (1) that the Middle Ages and Renaissance were united by a general belief in the existence of a Rosicrucian Order; and (2) that the Fraternity was at least coeval with the Christian era.¹ So also Cohausen speculates concerning Artephius, a supposed Arabian alchemist, placed far in the past of Hermeticism, and calls him the patron of Rosicrucians. The supposition is without warrant in the single Latin tract which is extant under this name.¹

A considerable interest has attached always to the position of Raymund Lully—meaning the alchemist who adopted that name—as an exponent of Rosicrucian doctrine on the side of Hermetic physics, and all the makers of incautious hypotheses have passed from one to another a confused reference to one of his famous tracts. Their thesis intends to cite the TESTAMENTUM MAGISTRI RAYMUNDI LULLII, addressed to a Philip, King of France. In Pars I, cap. 87, of this work the adept states that he obtained the congelation of common mercury by means of its menstrual, and that he performed the experiment near Naples in præsentia physici regis . . . et certorum sociorum. As used by Cicero, the substantive word physicus signifies a natural philosopher, scrutator and student of Nature: it carries no suggestion whatever of adeptship, as understood in alchemy. In the adjective form it means natural, more especially in connection with philosophy. The expression certi socii—particular or faithful associates, may or may not imply a confederacy by way of incorporation, a companionship in terms of alliance; but it would be used also for adherents in a common bond of sympathy. The context of Lully’s statement specifies that his companions or witnesses of the experiment included a brother of St. John of Rhodes and one Bernard de la Bret: he was not therefore referring to the members of a secret order. He adds also that—regia majestate salva, with due respect to the King—those who saw what he had done understood it only in rather...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Arthur Edward Waite
• Half title
• Contents
• Chapter I
• Chapter II
• Chapter III
• Chapter IV
• Chapter V
• Chapter VI
• Chapter VII
• Chapter VIII
• Chapter IX
• Chapter X
• Chapter XI
• Chapter XII
• Chapter XIII
• Chapter XIV
• Chapter XV
• Chapter XVI
• Chapter XVII
• Chapter XVIII
• Chapter XIX
• Chapter XX
• Chapter XXI
• Chapter XXII
• Chapter XXIII
• Chapter XXIV
• Appendix: Additional Expository Notes
• Index