And we’re dealing with a subject which has taxed the ingenuity of some variable Minds among them Mr Arthur Ed would wait I think we need this case to say a little something about the author of the book we are going to consider and Mr Waite was one of the outstanding writers of
His time in the otherwise neglected field of the esoteric Arts and Sciences is production in this area was prodigious and as Arthur editor translator and preface writer he made available to English-speaking people many Rarities of early philosophy and European mysticism that might not yet be available to us
We are most appreciative for his inspiration in contributing to the translation of the Museum of the medicine for example and we likewise deeply appreciate his industry and making available the two large folio volumes on the alchemical writings of paracelsus we remember him also as the translator of the French transcendentalist elephant Levy
We also know that Mr Waite was a Mystic and point in his own right in his book of poems of mystery and vision is an entirely commendable work we also know from his General literary style that he was a man of ability in these areas and from his research material
That he was by Nature a good student and with the available material in the library of the British museum at his disposal he has preserved for us a wonderful bibliography of authors texts and books that might otherwise remain comparatively unknown to the modern student down through the years I have gradually assembled
The greater part of his original reference material so that probably 80 percent of the books that he quotes particularly in the volume under consideration this evening we have in the original Editions the important thing is that he has preserved for us the necessary titles names and publication dates of practically
Every important text in the field this makes possible that others may follow after him and picking up the threads of his particular interests May uh unravel them further now as the book deals primarily with the subject of the rosicrucians I think we should try to orient ourselves a little bit
In his thinking on the subject the burden of Mr waite’s feelings are the burden is that the rosicrucian organization was a mystical Society completely and entirely esoteric uh that uh almost every Contender for a place in the membership of the society was either an optimist or a fraud that actually practically every book
Written in the last hundred years on the subject of Rosicrucianism is a monstrous absurdity that all our authors except himself are highly prejudiced he is different he is just prejudiced against everybody this situation must cause us to review a little some of his special findings in an
Effort if possible to see what we can do with the material he offers us always remembering that his quotations are probably correct and his interpretations on them probably incorrect we have a wonderful opportunity in reading such material to preserve our own reference frame we can resist the temptation to drift along
With our author we can pause and reflect and in this way perhaps attain considerable mental discipline out of a book which is read without criticism might prove rather disintegrating to a point of view for example early in his work he begins to shatter the conclusions and foundations that have been built during
The 18th 19th and the first decade of the 20th century these conclusions pointed rather definitely to certain possible sources for Rosicrucianism I concur with Mr Waite fully in his realization that this Society was not as a society an ancient institution that all efforts to give it a mythological Antiquity are essentially futile
That even with the best possible research we are unable to trace it back earlier than the opening years of the 17th century we must however clearly differentiate between Rosicrucianism as a formal organization and Rosicrucianism as a possible descent of mysticism which in its proper right goes back a very long time
Is therefore we wish to assume that the principles apparently concealed beneath the Enigma of the rosy cross if we consider these principles as ancient we will be well Justified if however we consider the organization to be ancient we have absolutely no ground on which to stand
And I also am inclined to agree with Mr Waite that we cannot permit psychic Revelation to fill this Gap in the study of the origin of the society most Scholars have assumed that the original documents of the rosicrucian society were published by a German theologian who was the religious and spiritual
Counselor of the Duke of Wittenberg one Johan Valentin Andrei now the hypothesis that Lord bacon might have been the founder of the rosicrucian society is at the outset not particularly attractive in the first place the bacon Shakespeare controversy has caused a powerful alignment of opinions and of course most of the scholarly
Opinion is on the side of Willie Shakespeare the situation then involving the baconian hypothesis is largely colored by other matters and we we’re not too sure of the ground on which we stand actually there are many parallels between the so-called Adventures of our father CRC the mysterious Christian rosenkrites of
The chemical marriage and the somewhat better known Lord verulam uh these parallels were however Advanced by the wrong people they were Advanced by enthusiasts they were Advanced by persons wearing the wrong School tie and things of that nature and as a result were generally discredited but whether they were Advanced by wise
Or foolish men the facts must stand on their own feet that there was a link between Andre and Lord bacon seems to be part of our basic mystery so I might mention a little episode that some of you may remember but which others may not have come across in our writings
Back in 1926 seven and eight when I was working on this large book which I did on symbolism word came to me that uh one of the oldest and most important Masonic lodges in England the mother kill winning large of Scotland had a very rare portrait of Lord bacon as an old man
Of course his lordship is supposed to have died 66. about this portrait was supposed to be a picture of him at much greater age the thought Intrigue may end full of Youth and exuberance I wrote the mother kill winning Lodge through their secretary and asked if they had such a
Picture and if so they would be gracious enough to send me a copy of it uh they were gracious enough and shortly after the picture arrived the picture was out of an elderly bearded gentleman the long white beard who and a black skull cap and underneath and around the picture was the
Inscription Joanne Valentin Andre I thought perhaps they sent me the wrong picture so I wrote back and asked them if this was the picture of bacon and they assured in me that it was now what the mother killed when he enlarge of Scotland might happen to know
About this I’m not too sure but they seem to feel that they knew what they were sending me and such an illustrious body would not like to be passed off lightly another interesting point in relationship to this situation is found in the writings of John Burton who were
Published anonymously under the title of Democritus Junior the work which he did was called the anatomy of melancholy and this as the name sounds was a most nostalgic volume which today would be a good textbook for a certain specialist in abnormal psychology but the book was full of all kinds of
Interesting notes and moves and as one man who contributed so many books and manuscripts to the Folger library in Washington told me he said many of us believe that this was originally Lord’s bacon scrapbook but in any advantage is accredited to a Mr Burton a very reverent gentleman of the Church of England
On one page of this book there is a reference to Christian rosenkroits or the mysterious father CRC after this is the usual Mark indicating a footnote and below is the footnote Johan Valentin Andre comma Lord varylum period now this does not appear in all editions of the book however
But it does appear in certain earlier Editions the only work that we know that describes the tomb of Christian rosencroids outside of the actual rosicrucian manifestos is a work on mathematical Magic by Dr Wilkins who was a member of the society which later became the Royal Society of
England and which as Pratt points out was inspired by bacon Wilkin Wilkins in his book describes the tomb with the ever burning lamp in the ceiling and calls it the tomb of our illustrious Brother Francis Rosy cross because Francis was Bacon’s first name and certainly Francis is not by any
Chance a firm or Christian the manifesto says Christian rules in Christ Wilkins presumably with no typographical error in mind calls him Francis Rosie cross there are numerous little odds and ends like this which Mr Waits chooses to totally ignore and therefore I am not sure that he
Makes a strong case to to prove that the rosary pollution Enigma had no place in the life of Lord bacon also if we remember the manifestos Christian rosenkroyce died over a hundred years before the mysterious opening of his tomb as this tomb was supposed to have been
Opened in the early years of the 17th century the mysterious founder had been dead quite a long while in the Dr Burton’s dear old book already referred to however there is the statement the founder of the rosy cross still living now this doesn’t quite fit into the picture
For he couldn’t be still living if the original text was correct there seems to be no doubt in anyone’s mind who really thinks this Enigma through that a group of persons perhaps definitely agents of esoteric orders perhaps descendants through the Troubadours and the temple of ancient mystical associations
Did get together in the beginning of the 17th century and formed a fraternity of some kind it has been said of Lord bacon that he rang the bell that brought the wits together and there seems to be something of this nature involved in our controversy there were only certain men of this time
If they had any reputation in letters at all who can be intimately associated with a project of this nature the actual texts of the society issued between 1614 and 1616. uh all of them are baited by their content even the chemical marriage is dated
It is dated to a way of life to a point of view at this dating definitely coincides with the Protestant Reformation these works could only have come into existence after the rise of Lutheranism we must therefore suspect that these books issued from some Protestant background uh it would be almost incredible that
They could have issued from any other background in as much as the very manifestos themselves indicate that the founder of the society brought back his knowledge and wisdom from the Arabs and from the Muslims which for most of Orthodox Europe would have been an unhappy background are not likely to cause
Confidence at that time we had to have some group of intellectual liberals also it is quite obvious from the text of the work that they centered around the concept of a universal Reformation of mankind they centered around the entire Theory of the passing of an old way of life
That a new world was coming into existence a world of new values new human relationships were heralding in a great world change this world change was naturally part of the period of which we are concerned for actually the opening years of the 17th century differentiate the medieval period from the modern world
I have his discovery of the blood the rise of the philosophy of bacon and Rene Descartes the emergence of the beginning of our scientific knowledge of astronomy the creation of the Royal Society or the exploration of all of the natural history of mankind these movements were
All part of what was referred to then as the way of tomorrowness they’re looking into the future of the gradual building of a great structure of World Knowledge founded upon the Firm Foundation of the inductive system of reason now who would likely be able to spearhead such a movement
Only a person who had this look of tomorrowness who was himself in some way concerned with the transition between Aristotelian scholasticism and the rise of modern humanism it is said that our father CRC returning from his travels at Fez and damca in North Africa and the near East
Returned or retired to a monastery and there he began the compilation of the Encyclopedia of all knowledge it was his uh purpose to prepare a work in which everything known to man might be made available to the scholars of this new age he may have worked very hard he might
Have been very industrious in his Endeavors but needless to say no such a work ever appeared under his name more was any work available at the time at which he was supposed to have functioned the only actual example of the type of work which he was devoted to was the instructor Magna of
Lord bacon this was as bacon himself declared to be an encyclopedia of all knowledge necessary useful or possible to man that he worked the labor through his years to produce this work we know and we also know that the northern organum regarded as the first textbook of modern
Science was Lord Bacon’s Masterpiece and it was the first section of the instrumental Magna so here we have a man living at the time when the first manifestos were published none were published earlier doing the very work that the author of The Unknown uh book was said to be concerned with there were
Many other parallels also but we must find some explanation for the rise of a sudden point of view we don’t solve everything in this way but I think we solve something I think we’ve become a little closer come a little closer to the necessary foundations of our subject
Mr Ray is trying to explore his aspect of the field makes a pretty thorough survey of The Alchemist and the alchemistical philosophers who flourished about the time of the beginnings of the rosicrucian controversy or shortly before that time that he examines their elaborate symbolical Works their mystical Theses
And their strange and wonderful formulas in an effort to discover if possible a route for Rosicrucianism in this area uh naturally he fails for the simple reason that these necessary links are not available according to his point of view there is no evidence for example that the alchemistical philosophers ever used
Any of the essentially rosicrucian devices or symbols and there is no proof that the rosicrucians ever actually made use of the alchemical symbols in any outward or common sense there’s only one possible way in which these groups can be linked there is every possibility that the Alchemists were actually concerned with the same
End namely social regeneration that concerned the rosicrucian order but the Alchemists were very spectacular group they’re wonderful old books are filled with the most elaborate diagrams and symbols the regularly issued texts of the rosicrucian society are either unillustrated or but slightly so they do not make use of these elaborate devices
And Designs certainly not in the first Circle of the apologists and supposed authors of the works we may then have parallel motions motions which might bridge at times for if there were any rosicrucians to be discovered the best candidates are among the Alchemists also we realize that about the time that
These manifestos of the rosy cross began to appear there was a considerable impulse toward the elaboration of alchemical writings most of the best tanks most extravagantly Illustrated volumes were issued within 10 or 15 years saw the appearance of the rosicrucian manifestos there is a package here somewhere
But the two groups seem to have at least a physical separation they do not intermingle in the common sense of the word although there are certain indications of possible sympathy between them arriving then at the beginning of the historical cycle of Rosicrucianism you look around to see if we can names or
Persons that might well be associated with this Society two names of well-known persons in the chemical and mystical literature of the period stand out one was the English physician rabbit flood and the other the German chemist Michael Meyer both of these men wrote about rosacrucianism Maya in particular also wrote considerably about alchemy
The Frankford publisher Theodore de Bray Illustrated many of the writings of both of these men and also many emblem books and other significant volumes which appeared about the same time writes quite enthusiastically about the rosie cross gives a long and learned discourse about the habits of the Brotherhood which actually says nothing
And then at the end States clearly that he claims no membership this sort of eliminates him unless we wish to assume that he lied in print the other possible candidate that we have uh Michael Meyer who was a nobleman and a counselor to his King does write also about the rosicrucians
He discusses them and mentions them and describes their habitations in Germany but before he gets through he also proves conclusively that he knew nothing about them the next important work comes out is also by Maya called the laws of the fraternity of the rosy cross here Maya really does quite an impressive job
He writes a small book in which he gives all the rules laws and proper uh Credo of the society unfortunately however he once again says nothing for all he has done is taken the original material in the farmer and enlarged upon it he has made extensive definitions of the various rules briefly
Stated there but when we get through with the book he has really added nothing new so we summarize the situation as it stands in the 17th century three books appear the same and confession of the Society of the rosy cross published in 1614 possibly available as early as 1612.
Somewhat sometime in manuscript it is believed they were circulated and a third works the chemical marriage of Christian rosenkrites which appeared two years later now in the fame and confession our illustrious Brothers CRC is never referred to by anything except initials he is delivered to us as Christian rosencrites only in the chemical
Marriage now the question that must further be established is from a critical standpoint is the chemical marriage in any way an actual Manifesto of the society it’s not that equally well in writing on rosicrucian material at the same time and at the end and insists that he
Doesn’t know the order and has never met a member of it admired at a splendid job and with the same negative conclusion therefore as the fame and confession had been in circulation for two years I will really entitled to assume that the chemical marriage was an actual official production of the society or
Was it one of the many logia that appeared during the next five or ten years we like to assume for practical purposes that it probably was directly or indirectly and Manifesto it can be traced to bacon we probably have every reason to assume that it was a genuine work
Whether we can trace the fame and confession to Baker is another problem but here again you can have a lot of sun it is assumed that the author of all of these works that is of the fame and confessions was a German and of course it is assumed that the
Author of the chemical marriage was a German while these Works may have been published in Germany the German author had some troubles when he got stuck for a word which might be a little unusual in German he usually used an English word which might possibly imply that English
Was his mother tongue or it may have been put there on purpose to create this question in the mind of the reader anyway it is a valid question or in an emergency or in some strange abstraction of learning of uh language uh it might well be that we would fill in with some
Word more familiar to us but Menace assumed for the moment that these three books were all genuine Productions we’ll have to question the appendix of the samasri to the tatis wherein this was to this was added a small work by bucolini an Italian author and the universal
Reformation of mankind it was all of a theme but this work only appears in one edition of the fame and confession so here we are with three books looking for an author these three books stand completely alone and every effort to tie them successfully to any other group of
Literature seems to be a little better than useless weight comes to this conclusion that these three books stand alone and then he begins to ask himself whether these books stand or rather the whole group of volumes fall together this is a question which I I don’t think
We can fairly take I prefer the more moderate course of assuming that some person or persons with a real and definite purpose and perhaps speaking for a private Society devoted to esoteric mystical or even religio political activities issue these manifestos that for one reason or another transpired
We were assured that the user would appear in many languages actually they did not the only time when they appeared in any other language was much later when they were translated they were not simultaneously issued in five tongues or anything of that nature and the various announcements and pronouncements contained within the
Volumes uh seemingly never were fulfilled to show how the situation was in the year of race 1616. uh it we might have to compare it to some strange thing that might arise today where suddenly there would be thrown upon us a verse solemn and uh apparently official document
Affirming the existence of some stranger or secret government and inviting us all to join in this great movement for the Regeneration of mankind a small fragmentary splinto movements of this kind have appeared at frequent intervals but they’ve never amounted to anything so the excitement grew immediately men of tomorrowless whether they were
Affiliated with anything or not were greatly moved by the dignity the humanity the nobility of these manifestos and all were most anxious to join so that at that moment uh the society had its best press and that was a tremendous popular interest everybody began to look around and there’s a very interesting contemporary
Records dealing with this subject Alchemists began searching desperately because they believed these rosicrucian brothers or adepts probably had the secrets of the transmutation of metals the mystery of Eternal Youth and the medicinal the elixir of life so they they were searching for them Progressive political leaders were very
Anxious to be affiliated with this organization philosophers Scholars divides clergyman even priests Bishops who are doing everything they could to find out where these brothers were and the funeral got greater and greater but there wasn’t any address to address a letter to there wasn’t anyone who seemed to be able to give any
Information whatsoever letters sent to mysterious adepts were always returned unopened at the same time of course as well might be expected a whole group of charlatans masquerading Under World titles and looking important drifted through various communities were immediately identified as rosicrucians but again these evaporated without very much
Contribution to the public good one early description of such an Adept is contained in a delightful little book called The Complete history of an unknown man this is uh exactly what it was and when you got through with the history the man was still completely unknown the only thing about him that
Was demonstrable as any of any historical significance was that he was a sort of a Pied Piper for he went into one small German Town and whistled all the rats out of the houses this was his only claim to those occlusian identification uh the helplessness of trying to communicate with these brothers left
Only one uh alternative The Wanted column now of course at that time newspapers were not really what they are today in fact in Venice newspapers were still being written by ham one copy for each subscriber so this wasn’t very successful the only thing that appeared to be feasible was to publish small booklets
Or 10 15 20 Pages some of them only eight pages in which some aspiring candidate would State his qualifications assure the Brotherhood that he would be their dedicated servant and please let him know where to reach them then these booklets were published in small numbers of 500 or a thousand and circulated
Throughout Europe in the hope that they would fall into the hands of one of the brothers and he in turn would communicate with the aspirant membership horrible 60 or a hundred of such Publications are already known and there are undoubtedly many more again however these were not effective
Because the writers of them most of them later wrote other works complaining that their first brochures were ignored so we had this little cycle of literature that uh our list of thoughts the fact that in 1616 the air depths of the rosy cross was difficult to find as they are now
And uh situations didn’t really better much but we should take or go along with some consecutive thought and try to feel out the situation a little further gradually another type of literature arose as the rosicrucians decided not to speak for themselves uh very interesting but not necessarily enlightening group
Of apologists appeared among the apologists being our friends buyer and flood these apologists would write an elaborate Manifesto thesis document or perhaps even a fine large polio in small print the substance of the book being that if the rosicrucians wish to remain unknown it was their right to do so and nobody
Had any reason to question it well the way through 250 pages of medieval Latin to learn this was itself rather disappointing these apologists however gradually developed imaginations which is not uncommon it is still a practice found among mystical writers not being able to learn anything else they began to decide
For themselves what Rosicrucianism was and uh by six by 1650 we had a dozen or more fine texts on the subject no two of which agreed with each other and each one of them for pounding to expound the original mystery of the fraternity I can agree with Mr Waite and the fact
That you can read them all and gain nothing some of them are very interesting most of them are a bit desperate several of them are permeated with a general atmosphere of futility but after a time we find another note coming in namely the Quest for the fast
Dollar and even as early as 1650 people were not completely without that little mercenary Twist of mind by the 50s and 60s a whole group of self-proclaimed rosicrucians were available to anyone who wished to sample their Fair they wrote extensively one of them was John Hayden who did quite an
Elaborate uh series of Works in his holy guide describing the Temple’s palaces and shrines of the rosicrucian fraternity in England unfortunately he failed to give any locations and therefore we’ve got to not too much comfort or consolation but he did write with great erudition in fact he had
Ideas that no one before him or since have ever sailed upon or really adequately quoted by the end of the 17th century by 1680 or 90 the situation had reached a dead end it passed into a dignified limbo the original Society had never claimed uh any distinction by its action it had
Never come forth and revealed itself its early circle of apologists were gone the secondary Circle were already mingling their rosicrucian interests again with a stream of alchemy and hermetic Arts and these in turn were beginning to wane under the impact of the rise of experimental science Minds were now turning more to chemistry
And Archeology and Antiquities and the development of various remedies based upon scientific knowledge so everything remained comparatively quiet until the beginning of the 18th century when we had quite a Revival of rosicrucian thinking this second cycle uh however begins to take on an entirely different color we now signed the subject becoming more
And more involved in ritualism and ceremonialism uh the rise of rosicrucian’s secret societies these societies sprang up in many areas there is no evidence or proof that they had any foundations of the original order but at that time communication was poor the public mind was open to almost any innovation
And the general difficulties politically of the countries of Europe seem to cause people to take particular interest in something of a hopeful idealistic or mystical nature these secret societies did gather into themselves a number of interesting people some of them are other brilliant people but it cannot be said that the
Mainstream of the subject was in any way it enriched in fact it perhaps was a little impoverished because now the other lab marks were pretty much obscured unless you had the time patience and wealth to investigate the original sources this drifted along through most of the 18th century
And during this time also we began to find the rise of masonic fraternities both regular and irregular in various parts of Europe Freemasonry developed a kaleidoscope of degrees every inventive and ingenious individual had another Masonic right now this situation continued to compound itself until there was really no Rhyme or Reason left in
The gradually developing structure of Freemasonry was brought together convened for the purpose of clarifying the Masonic situation among the delegates of this Congress by the way were two names also Associated sometimes with Rosicrucianism the count calcium and the county Saint Germain these were delegates of the Congress of
Ilhamsbad as a result of that masonry cleaned house and relegated most of its doubtful degrees to the historical and archaeological Department and again there was a christianism waned and became more or less concerned or involved in certain specialized groups of masonic Scholars the 19th century then died a great deal
To this picture it did however clarify the Masonic position in connection with the rosician order movements arose of masonic research and scholarships like the large of the quarter caronati in London the larger the Four Kings which was the great Masonic research Lodge which worked with old beliefs Legends rituals degrees and
More or less became involved in the rosicrucian controversy through the overlapping membership one of the members Dr Wynn rescat was also the head of the societos Rosa crucianos in Anglia which was a famous Sonic auxiliary uh devoted to rosicrucian studies admission requiring that the candidate the amasturbation
Uh during the latter part of this Century the Great American Masonic scholar and the general the Pike and The Sovereign Grand commander of the ancient accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of the Southern jurisdiction received an invitation from Europe to found Europe Masonic was a Christian auxiliary in this country
I have seen the correspondence in the house the Temple of Washington and if my memory does not fail me the letter was answered by General tyke’s son and in this letter the son points out that his father is now in two Advanced years and too heavily burdened with other responsibilities to undertake the
Establishment of a masonic research body in uh of rosicrucian interest in the United States so that the Masonic end as far as this country is concerned ends more or less in this way although one small Masonic research group The Society Rosie Cristiano in America was found and did
Flourish for a little while in the northern jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite around this point the Rosa patient controversy more or less Fades out so far as Masonic alchemical political and a nominist problems are concerned and in the late years of the 19th century and in the opening years of the
20th century Rosa christianism took on very largely the aspect of a Christian theosophy and as such uh did create and does maintain organizations in this country uh dealing perhaps to a degree with rosicrucian problems but very largely concerned with mysticism or with the esoteric aspects of man’s life none
Of these organizations are able to use any of the original texts as a basic text for their own work however because no text of the original order dealing with any of its mystical practices or beliefs is known to exist now Mr wake takes out another position here which perhaps is of some interest
To us he now assumes that the entire Descent of the rosicrucian society was completely Secret that it is actually impossible to trace either its Doctrine or its Ritual from any exoteric organization that has appeared that there are certain throtters or brothers of the society that have as in the old Pythagorean School perpetuated
Their knowledge by selecting disciples to succeed them and that this small group has descended over a long period of time and that somewhere here and there scattered about our legitimate rosicrucians at this point Mr Waite becomes extremely hedgy and takes on an atmosphere of almost uh anxious humility and leaves us
With somewhat the impression that perhaps he might be one of them but as he doesn’t seem to have courage enough to say so and perhaps he shouldn’t have brought it up in the first place because again his findings do not indicate any unusual possession of information in this area
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