Of mankind small fragmentary Splinter movements of this kind have appeared at frequent intervals but they never amounted to anything so the excitement grew immediately men of tomorrow 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 there was a tremendous popular interest everybody began to look around and there’s uh very interesting contemporary records dealing with this subject Alchemist began searching desperately because they believed these rosac crucian brothers or adepts probably have the secrets of the
Transmutation of metals the mystery of Eternal Youth and uh the medicine of the elixir of life so they uh they were searching for them uh Progressive political leaders were very anxious to be affiliated with this organization philosophers Scholars divines clergymen even priests Bishops were doing everything they could to find out where
These brothers were and the the furor 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 uh letters sent to mysterious adepts were always returned unopened um at the same time of course
As well might be expected a whole group of charlatans masquerading under weird titles of looking important drifted through various communities were immediately identified as rosac crucians uh but again these evaporated without very much uh 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 uh the only thing about him that was demonstrable as any of any historical significance was that he was a sort of a
Pip Piper for he went into one ger small German Town and whistled all the rats out of the houses this was his only claim uh to rosac crucian identification uh the uh hopelessness of trying to communicate with these brothers left only one uh alternative the want ad 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 hand one copy for each subscriber so this wasn’t very successful the only thing that appeared to be feasible was to publish small booklets oh 10 15 20 Pages some of them
Are only eight pages in which some aspiring candidate would State his qual fortifications assure the Brotherhood that he would be their dedicated servant and to 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 probably 50 or 100 of such Publications are already known and there were 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 U only supports the fact that in 1616 the adeps of the rosy cross was difficult to find as they are now and uh
Situations didn’t really better much but we uh should take go along with some consecutive thought and try to feel out the situation a little further gradually another type of literature arose as the U rosac crucians decided not to speak for themselves uh a very interesting but not necessarily enlightening group of apologists
Appeared among the apologists being our friends Meer and flood these apologists would write an elaborate Manifesto thesis document or perhaps even a fine large folio in small print the substance of the book being that if the rosac crucians wished to remain unknown it was their right to do
So and nobody had any reason to question it well to weigh through 250 pages of medieval Latin to learn this was itself rather disappointing these apologists however GR ually developed imaginations which is not uncommon and is still a practice found among mystical writers uh not being able to learn anything else they
Began to decide for themselves what Rosicrucianism was and 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 propounding to expound the original mystery of the fraternity I can agree with Mr we in the
Fact that you can read them all and gain nothing some of them are very interesting most of them are a bit desperate uh several of them are permeated with a general atmosphere of futility but after a time uh we find another note coming in namely the Quest
For the fast dollar and even as early as 1650 uh people were not completely without that little mercenary Twist of Mind by the 50s and 60s a whole group of self-proclaimed rosac crucians were available to anyone who wished to sample their Fair they uh wrote extensively one
Of them was John Hayden who did quite an elaborate uh series of Works uh in his holy God describing the temples palaces and shrines of the rosac crucian fraternity in England unfortunately he failed to give any locations and therefore uh we got too not too much comfort or consolation but he did write
With great audition in fact he had ideas that no one before him or since have uh ever fallen upon or really adequately quoted by the end of the 17th century by 1680 or 90 the situation reached a dead end uh it passed into a dignified limbo uh 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 rosac crucian interests again with the stream of alchemy and hermetic arts and these in turn were beginning to wne under the
Impact of the rise of experimental science Minds were now turning more to chemistry and archaeology 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 rosac crucian thinking this second cycle uh however
Begins to take on an entirely different color we now find the subject becoming more and more involved in ritualism and ceremonialism uh the rise of rosac crucian secret societies these societies sprang up in many areas there is no evidence or proof that they had any foundations in the
Original order but at that time communication was poor the public mind was uh open to almost any Innovation and the general difficulties politically of the countries of Europe seemed 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 rather brilliant people but it cannot be said that the main stream of the subject was in any way enriched in fact it perhaps was a little impoverished because now the old landmarks 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 the this time also we began to find the rise of masonic fraternities uh both regular and irregular in various parts of Europe Freemasonry developed a a kaleidoscope of degrees every inventive and ingenious
Individual had another Masonic right uh this situation continued to uh compound itself until there was really no Rhyme or Reason left in the gradually developing structure of free finally in the near the end of the 18th century the great Congress of vsb was brought together uh convened for the purpose of
Clarifying the Masonic situation among the uh delegates at this Congress by the way were two names also Associated sometimes with Rosicrucianism the count calostro and the count of St Germaine these were delegates at the Congress of IL hamsb as a result of that masonry cleaned house and relegated most of its uh
Doubtful degrees uh to the historical and archaeological department and again rosac crism uh waned and became more or less concerned or involved in certain specialized groups of masonic Scholars the 19th century didn’t add a great deal to this picture uh did however clarify the Masonic position in connection with the rosac crucian
Order uh movements arose of masonic research and scholarship like the lodge of the quar of caronti in London The Lodge of 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 rosac crucian controversy through
The its overlapping membership one of the members Dr W win wescot was also the head of the socius rosac crusan in Anga which was a freemasonic auxiliary uh devoted to rosac crucian studies admission requiring that the candidate be a Master Mason uh during the latter part of this
Century a great American Masonic scholar General Albert Pike Sovereign Grand commander of the ancient and accepted Scottish right of Freemasonry of the Southern jurisdiction received an invitation from Europe to found a masonic rosac crucian auxiliary in this country I’ve seen the correspondence In The House of the
Temple at Washington and if my memory does not fail me the letter was answered by General Pike’s son and in this letter the sun points out that his father is now in too advanced years and too heavily burdened with other responsibilities to undertake the establishment of a masonic um research
Body in of rosac crusan 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 Ros Christiana in America was founded and did flourish for a little while in
The northern jurisdiction of the Scottish right Beyond this point the rosac crucian controversy uh more or less Fades out so far as Masonic alchemical political and illuminist problems are concerned and in the late years of the 19th century and in the opening years of the 20th century Rosicrucianism 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 rosac crucian problems but very largely concerned with mysticism or with the U 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 on another position here which perhaps is of some interest to us he now assumes that the
Entire Descent of the rosac crusan society was completely secret uh that it is actually impossible to trace either its Doctrine or its Ritual from any exoteric organization that has appeared that there are certain fratter or brothers of the society that have as in the old Pythagorean School
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